Nova Shots
by Cordria
Summary: A collection of short stories. Now playing: Gym Class. It was supposed to be a boring day in gym. When two people turn Tucker's world upside down, will he ever be able to forget? Genre: horror, Rating: T
1. Melting

_Welcome, welcome, to a new collection of oneshots, short stories, drabbles, and try-outs for longer fics. If you're just tuning in, go check out 'Star Shots', the first collection of 100 stories. _

_This is number two. We'll see how far it gets. Hold on to your turbans, amigos, 'cause we're going supernova!_

_(Oh, and btw, I originally picked 'nova' because it means 'new' in Latin, not because of the obvious and belated-noticed connection to the first drabble set.)_

_This is a hand-off from Nylah, supreme authoress of all things cloning and melting._

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**Melting  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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The first thing I heard when I woke up was the sound of ectoplasm-based technology. It's got this unmistakable whining sound that sends shivers up your back and makes all your hair stand on end. Once you hear it, you never forget it and you never mistake it for anything else. Hearing that particular sound, of course, I knew meant one of three things.

One: I was in a nightmare of ghostly proportions and a demented version of Bozo the Clown was going to be staring at me when I opened my eyes, some sort of painful ectoplasm-based technology hanging over my head, laughing at me while he painfully cut me to pieces.

Two: the semi-governmental idiots that ran the ludicrous agency known as the Guys in White had finally captured me and were about to dissect me, despite all of the odds showing that they would never ever manage to get their hands on me.

Or three: I was in my parents' lab.

Fortunately for me, my nose decided to wake up, start working, and dispel two of the more ridiculous options. The acrid smell of ectoplasm was tinged with fudge: I was in the lab.

The question became why. _Why_ was I waking up in my parents' basement laboratory? I searched through my memories, throwing them left and right while I looked for an actual reason, keeping my eyes closed. I remembered coming home from school on Friday, annoyed that Sam and Tucker had managed to get sick and leave me to suffer through the longest day of school _ever_ all on my own. I remembered eating supper – actually, I remember hunting down supper after it came to life and jumped off the table, I don't believe I technically ate supper. I even remembered going to bed.

Which made today Saturday, most likely. After a moment of contemplation, I remembered eating breakfast this morning and not feeling good. I must have caught whatever Sam and Tucker had. But that was the last thing I could access. Waking up sick… and waking up in the lab. Nadda in between.

Finally I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling, folding my arms behind my head and sighing. The fact that I had an apparent hole in my memories was frustrating, but…

Catching a strange sparkle out of the corner of my eye, I turned my head and focused on the air just beyond the edge of the cot, cutting off my thoughts mid-sentence. There it was again – a shimmer in the air, a flicker of an unnatural green. Slowly I glanced all around me, then back over my head. The strange disturbance formed a dome about seven feet across all around me.

Oh _hell_, I was inside a ghost shield.

I let my head fall back against my arms and groaned, sorting through the various possibilities of why I was in such a place. It was _possible_ that my parents thought I'd be attacked by a ghost while I was down here so they set up a ghost shield to protect me. That theory didn't hold water too well, since they'd have just put me up in my bedroom instead of down here if that were the case. There was also the slight possibility that my parents had wanted to keep an eye on me – maybe my fever had gotten really bad – and they were just being their normal overprotective selves. Unfortunately, I didn't think much of that idea either.

The most likely reason I was inside a ghost shield was because I was, in fact, a ghost and my parents, being ghost hunters, were more than a little up on the idea of dangerous ghosts being separated from humanity in general. That was one of the reasons I'd never told them the truth about my accident when I was fourteen. The idea that ghosts could be anything but evil usually gave them a migraine.

I'd been buttering them up now for a bit over a year, slowly tickling them with the idea that ghosts – namely _me_ – were good things that didn't need to be hunted and dissected without mercy. Every chance both my sister and I got, we pointed out the evidence that there were good ghosts as well as evil ones. So far, not so good. At last check they were still gunning for my pelt in a way that even Skulker stopped to admire every now and then.

So you can see how waking up inside a ghost shield didn't do much to inspire confidence in me. The fact that my parents were separating me from them through the use of a high-energy, next-generation piece of technology was a bit off-putting. Of course, since I was as human as I was ghost, I could walk straight through it with little more than a zap and having to suffer with being statically charged for an hour, but that wasn't the point.

The point was that my parents had attempted to lock me in their mad scientist lab. I ground my teeth together, wondering what was going to happen next. Would they try to experiment on me? Would they be accepting of my strange not-so-human state? Or, at worse, would they keep me down here and ask me all sorts of questions? I knew my dad had a constantly evolving list of all the things he wanted to ask a ghost if he ever managed to catch one that could talk. I could be stuck down here for days.

But none of that answered the original question of _why_ I was down here in the first place. If my parents knew about me… how did they find out? They were more than a little oblivious – over a year of quietly dropped hints hadn't managed to bring out even the faintest sparkle of comprehension. What happened? What wasn't my mind throwing at me to remember?

_Ka-click._

Someone – probably my mother, due to the lack of the stairs creaking because of my father's weight – closed the door at the top of the basement stairs and headed down into the lab. I felt a moment of panic, wondering if I should say something. Just before she came into view, I closed my eyes and relaxed my body, pretending to still be asleep, my heart beating loudly in my chest.

"Danny?" she whispered, not turning on the light.

I took that as a good sign – if she cared enough to not disturb my 'sleep' then she probably wasn't up to dissection – but I didn't respond. I wondered how much information I could get out of her before she found out I was awake. Maybe she'd clue me in on why I was down in the lab, behind the ghost shield, with a giant hole in my head where the past few hours should have fit.

Unfortunately for me, she kept quiet as she bustled around the shadowed room. I could hear pieces of technology moving around, soft clatters of sound as she picked up things and set them down. Then there was a soft light, a quiet whir, then everything fell silent again.

"Still asleep, huh Sweetie?" she said softly and I felt her warm hand touch my forehead to bush some of my hair back. With a year of practice, I carefully kept myself from moving. "Your fever's gone down… you really scared us for a while. I was twenty minutes from bringing you to the hospital when your fever finally broke."

That didn't sound very good. My fever had been that bad?

Her hand left my head and rearranged my blanket. "If you decide to wake up," she continued, still speaking in a whisper, "stay here, okay Honey? We're flooding the area inside the shield with spectral energy to help keep you stabilized." She leaned over me and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. "I brought you some crackers and water if you're up to it too."

I didn't move a muscle, although my mind was working furiously. I heard Mom walk away and the soft _ka-click_ of the door closing behind her, but still I didn't move. First of all there was the quite obvious fact that my 'sleeping' hadn't fooled my mom one bit. She knew I was awake and faking it – which begged the question of how often I really _did_ fool her. That wasn't a question that really needed answering at the moment though; it was one to be filed away to contemplate at a later time.

The big problem was that whole issue of '_stabilized'_. What in the world did she mean by that? They're flooding the area with spectral energy? What does that mean? What was wrong with me? What wasn't I remembering?

Suddenly I wished I had opened my eyes and could ask some questions – not knowing what was going on had to be worse than dealing with the fact that my parents knew I was a ghost. I opened my eyes and looked around the shadowed lab, trying to look past the shimmering ghost shield. Small lights flickered and flashed all over the lab like a late-night Mardi Gras parade. I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking for and, after a moment, disappointment curled inside of me at not finding anything helpful.

"Excellent," I rasped. Turning my head the other way, I caught sight of the plate of crackers and the glass of water Mom had mentioned. Levering myself to my elbows, I reached out and grabbed the glass, sipping at the cool water. What was I going to do next?

Snagging one of the saltine crackers, I chewed on it slowly as I pushed myself up so I was sitting and staring around the room. I was kind of at a loss. Mom had told me to stay put but…

I swung my legs a few times, then slowly eased myself off the edge of the cot. I didn't feel bad, I felt good, really. My feet connected with the ground. But when I put weight on my legs, they collapsed under me like spaghetti noodles. My arms couldn't hold me upright and I dropped to the ground with a groan, the plate of crackers clattering down beside me.

"Ow…" I muttered, shaking my head and using my shaking arms to push me back to sitting. Why was I so weak? What had happened to me?

I shook my head dazedly, reaching out to pick up the plate and the crackers I'd dropped. I hesitated when I noticed that the crackers had fallen outside the ghost shield, but I just took a breath and stuck my hand through the ghost shield to collect them.

Two things happened in that instant.

The first was that I got zapped – and I got zapped good. I could feel the discharge of electricity in my teeth.

The second was that my hand started to look really _weird_. I yanked my hand back through the ghost shield and stared at the greenish liquid that had appeared all over my hand.

_I sat down in the chair at my desk, my head throbbing in time with my heartbeat. The world was spinning, but I really didn't seem to care much. I didn't feel good. Especially after breakfast – Dad's cereal wasn't sitting well in my stomach. Maybe I should have just gone back to bed, it was Saturday after all. _

_Minutes passed as I stared down at my hands. I couldn't get up the desire to do homework and my mind wasn't really processing doing anything other than sit. My hands were what was fascinating me, 'caught' in my head. The bumps, and the creases, and the patches of color and the fingernails and that one spot on my finger…_

_What was going with my finger? I held up my hand, looking at it closer. My hand looked wet. A glob of greenish, glistening liquid rolled down my fingers, crossed the palm of my hand, and dripped onto my desk. The spot on my desk started to sizzle as the intense energy of the liquid burned into the desk's wood. Another drip. I just watched._

_My hands… my skin… was crying…_

I blinked away the memory, startled. My hand was drying – either absorbing the strange liquid or letting it evaporate away. I searched my mind, wanting more of that. What happened after that?

"_Mom?" I asked softly, my whole body swaying as I stumbled down the steps into the lab._

_She turned around, her soft smile vanishing as she took in my ragged appearance. "What's wrong?"_

_In response I held out my hand. Liquid was still forming on my skin, but by now it wasn't just a few drops dripping onto the floor. It was more like a faucet. I'd left a streak of burning carpet and flooring in my wake on the way down here. _

_Mom was over to me in a flash, worry in her eyes as she saw what was on me. "Ectoplasm?" she asked, reached forwards. Her ungloved hands touched my skin before quickly drawing away, her human skin unable to take the combination of energy and cold that the ectoplasm released. "It is… but…" She looked up at me, confused. "Why isn't it burning you?"_

_I blinked at her a few times, not comprehending the question. "I don't feel good, Mom," I whispered. _

_Her face dissolved into motherly concern as she reached forwards to touch my forehead. I felt her fingers for only a moment before she jerked her hand away, her fingers burned. The strange liquid, the ectoplasm, was leaking out of the skin on my forehead. I could feel it start to soak into my clothes and puddle on the ground around me._

_"Mom…"_

I stared down at my now-completely-dry hand in horror, the memory fading away. My hand was shaking. Actually, my whole body was trembling. I had figured out what was going on, and I was scared.

I was melting.

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Uploaded August 29, 2008  
:D See you soon! I have a lot of these saved up...  
Thank you for reading!


	2. The Match

_An AU-ish version of a bit of a DP episode. Can you figure out which one it is?_

_Sorry if you also follow me on DA. A few of these, like this one, you'll already have read. I'll get to the new ones soon._

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**The Match**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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It was a match born in the deepest bowels of Hell. Only the truest and darkest of the demonic forces, pulling inspiration from the screams of millions upon millions of tortured souls, could have created such a pairing. One part fire, two parts brimstone, a handful of torment, two helpings of terror, and eleven generous dashes of pure, green-eyed, unspoken jealousy… mix well. Best when shaken, not stirred.

At least, that's how a few select people, who happened to have their eyes open a little wider than the general populace, saw it. When those few particular people noticed the newest couple, smoke quite literally curled out of their ears and their heads were filled with the sound of fingernails-on-chalkboard. Teeth clenched to the point of pain, fists curled until blood was drawn, and eyes narrowed dangerously.

The rest of the world thought they were cute. Smiles, flowers, and congratulations were tossed carelessly towards the Hell-spawn and her latest boyfriend.

That was probably the worst part of it: the fact that nobody else could see the devils' horns or smell the sulfur that leached into everything the demon girl touched. And that _he_, of all people, had been pulled in by her feminine wiles was just sickening. Nobody would have cared if it the witch had chosen to woo some other boy.

And on top of everything else, there was the knowledge that 'those few particular people' who could see the truly evil nature of the demon was, in truth, just one person… just me.

I wrenched my fingers apart, wincing slightly as my fingernails left deep dents in my skin, and dragged my eyes away from the odd couple in question to gaze down at my lunch. They were walking across the cafeteria, _him_ carrying both trays, the Devil-in-teenage-clothing hanging onto his arm and staring up at him with those wicked, gleaming eyes, smiling and keeping up a girly commentary. It was Little Red Riding Hood come to life… only with a boy instead of a girl, and a demon rather than a wolf.

For the ninth time since I'd sat down to eat my meal, I reminded myself that it really didn't matter to me. It wasn't like he was _mine; _I didn't have any kind of claim on him. He was almost an adult. If he wanted to go out with the shallow witch, it wasn't any of my business. I took a deep breath and focused on eating. The wilting lettuce in my school-offered salad suffered my wrathful stare for a few moments as I tried to remember what to do first. Pick up the… _demon-spawn_… Pick up… _thief_… Pick up the fo… _do you smell sulfur?_

"Samantha."

I flinched away from the over-the-top female voice. It reminded me too much of my mother, only with a thick layer of _true_ greasy malevolence coating every word. Just hearing the devilish girl speak made me want to take a bath. Having her saying my own _name_… How much work is it to get a name change?

"Sam…"

The other voice was much more welcome. He'd settled into a light baritone and, at an even six feet, was the perfect height. I knew that his blue eyes were fixed on me, a confused kicked-puppy look to his expression at my cold-shoulder attitude. He figured he'd done nothing wrong, of course. He had _asked_ if he could go out with the demon from the pits of torment and I'd said, as I had to say, 'yes'. Thus, to him, I should have been fine with it.

I wasn't. I hope that's perfectly obvious to anyone reading this. I said what I had to say, being his best friend and not his girlfriend. But as I was saying 'yes', I was screaming _'No!' _so loudly the universe developed a crack. I heard it. It split straight through heaven and sliced into my heart, shattering my soul into a million tiny pieces.

If he was happy, good for him. But they were _not_ going to sit down next to me. Not after what I had been through the past few days since the new couple was declared official through the traditional and sickening exchange of a class ring. Besides, I was having a hard enough time finishing my lunch as it was. If I had to sit next to the Hell-spawn, I was going to throw up what little I had eaten.

Already the thick scent of her evil sulfur was chocking the air and making it difficult to breath. I heard him pull out a chair and sit down next to me, felt his body heat even in the relatively warm school cafeteria.

_She_ sat down across the table from him, still keeping up her side of her mindless chatter, studiously ignoring my mental command to spontaneously combust… or at least _leave_. I was sure the daughter of Satan could hear my thoughts, especially after the look she gave me, and was just staying to infuriate me. Fire danced in her glittering eyes, torment sparkled off her perfectly groomed fingernails, and jealousy was etched into every line of a body that was created to be too tempting to ignore. And every last ounce of that Hell-born power was aimed at the one boy I'd ever fallen truly in love with.

The fork had, finally and miraculously, found its way into my hand, but I can assure you that I wasn't thinking about eating my salad with it. My fingers tightened around the flimsy plastic as I pictured myself digging her diseased brain out of her head, marring her impossibly silky hair for all time. When the fork snapped under the pressure, I didn't really notice. Nobody did. Everyone was too focused on the Devil-in-disguise.

It wasn't until the blood started to drip onto my leg that I realized the sharp edges of the broken utensil had dug into my palm. I carefully lifted my hand and unclenched my fingers long enough to remove the remains of the fork and to study the wound. It was bleeding pretty good – I'd gouged off a nice piece of my palm – but it didn't really hurt.

The demon-spawn was to be blamed for this, I know she had a hand in this. Somehow, she made sure I'd get the defective fork in the package. Sitting down and forcing me to hurt myself was no doubt a part of her latest nefarious scheme to send me off the deep end. Simply dating my best friend wasn't good enough for the depths of Hell. No… she had to _rub it in_.

"Sam!?"

Speaking of best friends, he'd finally noticed my hand and the fact that I was leaking my life onto the cheap linoleum of an under-funded government educational facility. As he grabbed my hand and a napkin to press against the cut, I looked up at the witch sitting across from me. Her eyes narrowed knowingly, a satanic smirk touching her demon-perfect lips. It was the universal, unspoken, female body language, and I knew what she was saying perfectly: _he's mine, bruja._

The answer to her challenge was quick and thoughtless. I used my own brand of body language rather than the usual variety, however.

I threw myself across the table and punched her.

"SAM!"

Visions sparkled through my head of the various ways I could _destroy_ the monster that had worked malevolent way into our midst. I could drive a stake through her heart and follow it up by decapitation, a clip of silver bullets, a wreath or two of garlic, and incineration in a fire hot enough to vaporize steel. And then make sure her ashes were locked forever in a Pope-blessed urn surrounded by a moat of holy water, chanting monks, and a choir of angels. Maybe a ghost shield too, just to make sure she didn't come back in a second life. That had to cover just about everything.

The demon-spawn fought back. Her Hellish claws came up to gouge at my face, aiming for my eyes, her true nature shining through for a split second as she hissed at me in some sort of foreign language. I rolled a little on the table to avoid her hands, feeling my legs knock a few lunches to the ground. Pure fury and rage bubbled out of me as I struggled to land another punch on the devilish young woman who had so openly taunted me. She _would_ pay. Not just for the betterment of not only my best friend and myself, but for all of human-kind, I had to get rid of the shallow demon of Amity Park.

"Saa-aam!"

Strong hands grabbed at my waist, yanking me backwards off the table and holding me tightly. I fixed a death-glare on the mussed-haired witch on the other side of the table, not willing to struggle against my best friend's grip to get back at her. She was looking at me like she was debating on whether or not to order me dragged to Hell and slowly torn to pieces by her hordes of tortured minions. Then a calculating look crossed through her demon-bright eyes… and she burst into tears.

"Samantha Manson!"

Even the irate sound of the vice-principal didn't etch through the simmering hatred I felt for this creature. I couldn't quite understand what the overweight man was yelling in my direction. All I was really comprehending was how premeditated her look had been. She'd _planned_ this. She was _trying_ to get me in trouble and out of her way.

As the vice-principal took my arm and started to tow me out of the cafeteria, no doubt to call my parents and send their wrath down upon me, I continued to glare furiously at the witch, feverishly begging any god or goddess that would listen to make her hair suddenly ignite. I could do nothing but growl dark threats under my breath as the demon sniffled prettily and scuttled around the table to press her Hell-perfect body against my best friend's.

I wished, just for a moment, that I was the kind of girl would break down in tears and cry my broken heart out. She'd stolen my best friend from me… the boy who haunted my dreams. She'd shattered my heart with the maniacal purpose that only a true spawn of Satan could, and had done it with the devious calculated efficiency of someone who'd done this numerous times in the past. I, a mere mortal girl, could never have stood a chance against her evil mechanizations.

The part that caught me, though, was that he didn't look down at her as he absently put a hand on her shoulder as she rubbed her snot-covered, but yet still impossibly beautiful, face into his shirt. He was looking at me, his blue eyes confused and hurt.

"Sam?"

I answered the only way I could. I looked straight into his eyes and let him see just a small part of the pain I was feeling, whispering his name so softly that the fly buzzing by my ear couldn't have heard it. "Danny…"

He wouldn't understand what I'd done and why I'd done it – he probably never would. I was this strong, independent, and powerful young woman… but a small thing like his smile could bring me to my knees. I'd never be able to admit that I felt something so impossible when I was around him. I'd never be able to explain to him why I hated that demon as much as I did. Love was the most powerful force in the universe… something that witch knew perfectly. She had my best friend wrapped around her love-struck finger perfectly.

Just as I was turning around to walk out of the room to face the doom that malevolent young woman had managed to bring before me, I saw Danny push her slightly away from him, his eyes still fixed worriedly on me. Then he glanced down at the beautiful girl pressed against him.

"Kitty…"

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Uploaded August 30, 2008  
'Luckily In Love' if you didn't guess  
Thanks for reading!


	3. Wedding Dresses

**Wedding Dresses**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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At twenty-three years old, I was fresh out of college and busy setting two feet firmly into the 'real world'. I'd just landed an excellent job as a regional animal shelter advertisement manager and everything was going perfectly. Except, of course, for the present moment. This wasn't so much fun, but I suppose it was was part-and-parcel to agreeing to be the Maid of Honor at my friend's wedding.

I looked up from my boots when I heard the rustling of fabric and my friend swept into the room. We'd ended up going to college together and had found, to both of our surprise, that we actually had quite a bit in common. After a local rights protest freshman year, we'd been friends ever since. I'd gotten her to be a little less 'cheerleader' over the years and she had, to my parents' delight, gotten me sort of interested in fashion and other more female-oriented things. While I'll admit that Star has a decent fashion sense, at the moment she was swathed in a hideous collection of white silk, lace, and tiny fake roses, poofed out like a ballerina. It was, quite frankly, enough to make me forget about the past few years and run back to my gothic teenage likeness.

Star had been a stick throughout most of high school, but her genes had caught up to her in the end. She'd gone from a willowy reed to a full-figured young woman by the time she started college. When she'd gotten engaged, Star was, shall we say, 'well endowed' and curvaceous. Normally fitting happily into size sixteen or eighteen clothes, this particular wedding dress she'd chosen to try on looked to be about six sizes too small. She was bursting out of every seam.

Fighting back a smirk, I pushed myself to my feet to survey the dress from up close. My first impulse was to scream and run in the other direction, but the bright lights shining in my friend's eye cut off my words. With a small sigh, I lied through my teeth. "It looks really pretty, Star. It's got the flowers you wanted."

"It's too small," she shot back, twisting and turning to attempt to see every side of the dress in the mirror. "I'm going to have to go on a diet to fit in it properly."

This time, I couldn't stop the reaction. A small smile and an eye roll showed my thoughts at her statement. Star had been on (and off) diets constantly since she'd hit one hundred eighty pounds… and had never lost an ounce. "Maybe you should just make it to fit you," I offered.

"Nonsense. Do you know how much extra they charge you to make the dresses bigger?" She sucked in her stomach, causing more to bulge out of the top of the strapless dress. "My dad's already complaining about how much this wedding is costing. I'll lose the weight. You'll just have to be meaner in getting me to exercise."

Nothing got her to exercise. I could get Tucker, the king of the couch potatoes, to exercise, but none of my tricks worked with Star. "That's worked so well in the past," I muttered.

She ignored me, like she usually did when I fell into sarcasm. "I bet I could be your size again by the time of the wedding," she murmured to herself, running her hands up and down her sides, "but what would this dress look like on someone skinnier?" She brightened. "I've got it!"

I looked up, arching an eyebrow at the look she was giving me, a bad feeling curling around in the pit of my stomach. "What?"

"You try it on for me! Then I could see what it'll look like after I lose the weight!"

The dress seller started a little, glancing from me to Star and back. I looked down at my own waist, then flicked a glance at Star's. I wasn't the skinniest person in the universe… but I was about ten sizes smaller than Star. She'd have to lose something north of sixty pounds to fit into a dress that was my size. "You realize the wedding is in four months, right?"

"I'll just stop eating," she said simply, nodding her head as if that were the greatest plan in the world. "Come on, Sam. Please?"

With a skeptical look, the dress seller stepped forwards. "Maybe we should see what other dresses you'd like to try on," she offered, obviously not enthused about me trying on dresses since I wasn't going to be buying one.

"I don't look good in white," I stated in quiet agreement. I did _not_ want to try on the dress. Me, flowers, poofy, and white... it was Hell on Earth.

"Yeah, but aren't you going to wear white at your wedding?" Star poofed the tulle on the skirt a little more.

I laughed, shaking my head. "I'm not engaged. And I'm not wearing white. I never wear white, you know that."

Star smiled vaguely. "You've been dating Danny for five years. Besides, I saw him at the jeweler's yesterday when I was getting my rings fitted."

"So?"

"So…" Star looked over at me. "Are you seriously _that_ oblivious? God, the two of you are made for each other. Danny's totally in love with you and he was looking at engagement rings. He's so going to propose."

"Maybe you _should_ try it on," the dress seller suddenly said, stepping into the conversation. Having sniffed out a potential future sale, she switched sides of the argument on me.

"You're not going to lose that much weight." It came out mean, but Star didn't seem to notice.

"Please, Sam? Just one dress. I just want to see what it would look like if I lost the weight. It'll motivate me."

I shook my head sourly, but when Star grabbed my hand and started to drag me back to the dressing room, I didn't fight her. Really, it _would_ be some sort of motivator for her to lose the weight. Besides, I had an ongoing bet with Tucker about Star's weight. If she could get it down, I was set up to earn quite a bit.

"I need to go get a different size, I'll be right back," the dress seller said quickly, vanishing off into the bowels of the store, leaving me to untie my boots in silence. Star and I took separate booths, me to undress and Star to get into some 'normal' clothes for a moment.

"You going to say yes?" Star asked suddenly as I was unbuttoning my shirt.

I looked up, startled. "What?"

"When Danny asks you to marry him. Are you going to say yes?"

"Um…" Of _course_ I was going to say yes. I would have said yes years ago… but I wasn't going to tell Star that. Sure, Danny and I had been 'dating' for five years, but it was an on-again, off-again sort of relationship. There was no way Danny loved me enough to ask me to marry him. "I don't think he's going to ask, really."

"Of course he is."

I was going to retort, but the sales woman was back and I didn't feel like arguing in front of her. "Here you go," she said brightly, rapidly taking a dress out of a bag and helping me to zip it up. "It's a slightly different style – not as fluffy – but the other didn't come in your size."

The lack of a mirror in the small dressing room was a bit disturbing. As the woman helped me step into the mass of white material, I knew the dress wasn't just 'slightly' different from the one Star had tried on. This one had long sleeves and much cleaner lines, but I couldn't tell what it looked like without a mirror.

When it was finally pinned together, the sales woman helped me out of the room. Star was waiting, her hands on her hips, but her mouth dropped open when she saw me. "Oh… my…" she whispered.

"What?" I asked, suddenly wanting to back into the dressing room and tear the thing off of me. I knew it wasn't a good idea for me to wear white. "Do I look that bad?"

"Come see in the mirror," Star said softly, grabbing my hand and towing me to the front of the store.

I tore my hand out of her grasp just before she pulled me in front of the giant three-way mirror. Taking a deep breath, ready for the worst, stepped onto the tiny platform, and looked into the mirror. And gasped.

The dress was, as I had thought, completely different from the one Star had tried on. Completely Gothic, the dress had dagged sleeves, a medieval-looking style, and bits of lace that looked a lot like spider webs draped around the skirt. And… I looked… nice…

I could see myself, right then, standing at an alter with Danny by my side. Something small, maybe in the back yard of my parents' house, with just close friends and family. Purple, blue, and green flowers – all in pots rather than cut flowers, of course, so they could be reused.

It was kind of creepy. Me, Samantha Manson, self-proclaimed Goth and complete distain-er of all things mainstream, picturing myself getting married 'I Love Lucy' style. It was enough to send shivers down my back. But I couldn't get the image out of my head.

"Sam?"

I whirled around, my hand jumping to my heart at Danny's voice. "Danny!"

He was standing right behind me, a strange look in his blue eyes. For a moment, he was totally silent, taking me in from head to toe, the tiniest of smiles on his face. "You look beautiful in that, Sam. But I never thought you'd actually wear a white dress."

Forgetting my earlier vow to never wear white, I put one hand on my hip and narrowed my eyes. "White is, I'll let you know, traditional at weddings. I can't go against hundreds of years of tradition, now can I?" At the small shake of his head, I raised my chin a bit and turned away from him, looking at myself in the mirror. "Besides, I'm trying this on for Star."

I could see Danny's eyes cut to Star in the mirror, a smile tugging at his lips. Star, dressed in normal clothes, was lounging in the chair I had so recently vacated. To someone who had just walked in, it looked like I was the one shopping for a dress and Star had been dragged along to help. I scowled at her but Star merely smiled at me and said, "It's a pretty dress, Sam."

"What do you want, Danny?" I asked.

Danny looked a bit startled at the tone of my voice and I inwardly winced. I hadn't meant it to come out so harsh. "I… was… wondering if you had plans for supper."

"What did you have in mind?" I smiled at him, trying to make my tone a bit nicer. I didn't feel exactly comfortable in this beautiful dress with Danny staring at me.

"Um… the Paradiso had an opening for supper. What to go?" Danny shifted uneasily on his feet and I couldn't help the small smile that bloomed on my face. Danny was a superhero, having saved the world on a couple of occasions, and he was still nervous about asking me out on a date.

"Sure."

Danny grinned at me, his eyes sparkling. "Great! I'll pick you up at seven, okay?"

Before I could nod, Danny had retreated out of the dress store and was gone. Shaking my head slightly at the crazy antics of my boyfriend, I turned back to the mirror, studying myself once more. Finally I stepped off the small platform and headed back towards the dressing room.

Star trailed after me with a dumbstruck look in her eyes. "The Paradiso," she whispered. "You can't get reservations there. Especially not same day. You have to book that place, like, months in advance."

"Maybe someone cancelled," I muttered.

"So not," Star said, suddenly starting to giggle. "Dinner at the Paradiso – the most romantic restaurant in the city, caught looking at rings at the jeweler's, nervous about asking you out… oh he's so going to propose tonight."

I looked up at the ceiling, unsure of what to think about Star was saying.

"Next time I see you," she laughed, "you'll be engaged. I just know it!"

* * *

Uploaded September 1, 2008  
Gooey... Drowning in goo...  
Thanks for reading!


	4. The Great Experiment

_Lots of scientificy-type terms. Beware. To those on DA - this one's actually new. I think. XD You're welcome._

_Two drabbles posted today! Go read (and review) both!_

_Also, check out dp-angst. deviantart. com for information on the Great Danny Phantom Day Of Angst Celebration and how to help!_

* * *

**The Great Experiment**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

They had him. _Finally_. After months of collecting data and weeks of analysis to find a pattern to the ghost's behavior, hours of meticulous planning to set up their trap, and several heart-stopping, frantic moments when they thought everything was going to fall to pieces… they had him. Never mind that over the intervening months they'd both separately wondered whether or not they _should_ catch him, catch him they did.

Jack leaned over the unconscious form, a huge smile plastered on his face even as he went about the frustrating task of untangling the ghost from the net they'd caught him in. Sticky fibers clung to the ghost's clothes, skin, and hair, and the whole mess was made infinitely worse by how much the ghost had struggled before succumbing to the sedative in the sticky goo. It had taken far longer than they had expected for the ghost to lapse into unconsciousness.

"You're never going to get that undone, Jack," Maddie said simply as she watched her husband try to find a place to being unwinding the net. The sedative should have taken effect immediately, resulting in none of this tangle of netting – she had already set part of her mind on figuring out what had gone wrong. "We're going to have to cut it off."

"Nonsense," Jack blustered, his large fingers picking delicately at the net. "I can do it."

Maddie sent him a small, tired grin. The large man would, if she let him, sit there and work on that stupid net for hours. "Let's get him in the GAV, okay Jack? You can work on it some more as I drive us back to the lab."

"Get the gurney, would you, Mads?"

Nodding, she vanished into the evening shadows in the direction of the Ghost Assault Vehicle. Jack plucked at a few of the net's strands as he waited for her to return, sighing a little. The thought of cutting his precious net apart was painful, but he was pretty sure that his wife was right. Getting the ghost out of the net would take hours – hours they didn't have.

Almost gingerly, Jack's fingers reached out to brush some of the white hairs away from the ghost's face, studying his captive intently. Getting the sticky net out of the boy's hair would definitely require some scissors. He could picture the look in the teenager's face when he realized that his hair had been cut. Those green eyes would simmer with power and anger. Strangely though, Jack couldn't picture the ghost being too furious about it.

"Danny Phantom," Jack said softly. "The ghost of Amity Park. I can't believe it." Deep inside, Jack was still waiting for the ghost to pull one of his miraculous escapes and vanish from his grasp.

The squeak of the gurney's wheels heralded his wife's return and Jack turned towards her. At her ready smile, Jack leaned down to pick up his prize. He was already busy cataloguing data in his mind – the boy was lighter than expected, perhaps only ten to fifteen kilos, and seemed to have an internal firm 'structure' not far off from a human's (Jack had often wondered if a ghost would become a rather formless blob when it lost consciousness, or whether its 'body' was more stable than that).

Laying the ghost on the hard gurney, Jack grinned. "You did a great job, Mads." He couldn't stop the bubble of happiness that was growing inside of him. Slowly but surely, he was getting his mind around the fact that he did, in fact, _have Danny Phantom_. The boy wasn't going to get away this time. "Right on target."

"It was your invention that worked so well," Maddie glowed back, her own smile threatening to split her face in half. She turned the gurney around and started back down the street, wheels squeaking pitifully, trying to split her attention between the pock-marked road and her captive.

"This will be great!" Jack was bouncing on his toes as the excitement about what was going happen next curling through him. He was _finally_ going to be able to answer all the questions he'd been creating since college. How did the ghosts hold their forms together? How did they sustain their 'life'? Did they sleep? Did they eat? "We finally get to run all of those experiments we've been wanting…"

The squeak of the wheels stopped. Maddie's forehead was furrowing, her eyes narrowing, an intense look on her face as she studied the boy. She'd noticed something strange. "Jack…"

"What?" Jack looked down at the firmly trussed-up ghost, searching for any signs of consciousness. The boy shouldn't have been able to wake up while still in the clutches of the net.

Maddie reached forwards. One of the ghost's arms had been pulled up tightly against his chest by the net and Maddie put her hand on top of the arm, waiting for a few moments. There – she could feel it, the thing she'd noticed – a steady rise and fall to the boy's chest. She pulled her hand away, confused. Then she slowly took off her glove and placed her hand a few centimeters from Phantom's mouth. A slightly puff of cold air danced across her fingers. "He's breathing," she whispered, bewilderment warring with awe and curiosity.

"That's not possible," Jack said, taking off his own glove to feel the slight exhalations. "Ghost's don't breathe."

Maddie was slowly fitting her glove back on her hand, thinking through her next thoughts carefully. "Jack… do you think… that maybe he _needs_ to breathe?"

Jack shot her a look, confused. "What do you mean? He doesn't have lungs, he doesn't have blood, and he doesn't have cells that need oxygen. He's a ghost."

"And ghosts don't breathe." Maddie frowned down at the ghost, the image of the tightly bound ghost refusing to leave her thoughts. "This one does, for some reason."

"True," Jack agreed, not knowing where this was going. "Come on, Mads. Let's get him in the GAV." He reached over and took the gurney from his wife, starting to push it towards their van, his mind turning to the experiments he had planned to run. The first – one that was already set up in the vehicle – was to take and analyze an ectoplasm sample. It'd tell them all sorts of interesting things about the young ghost boy.

Maddie nodded and followed, still troubled by her own thoughts. "What if he does, though." She bit her lip a little. "What if he _does_ need to breathe and the net's too tight?"

"We'll cut the net off him," Jack said simply. He didn't like the thought of cutting up the net he'd worked so hard to create, but he'd go along with his wife on this one. And, on the off chance that the ghost really did _need_ to breathe, Jack wasn't willing to risk losing his captive. He had too much riding on the young ghost.

"Good," Maddie said, pleased for some reason, and took a few quick steps to reach the doors to the van before Jack did. She unlocked the side door and pulled it open before climbing in. Once inside, she turned around to help Jack maneuver the gurney into the GAV's mobile laboratory. It wasn't as hard as either of them had been expecting – the old hospital gurney far out-weighted the slight ghost.

Jack clambered into the van with a grin, turning to search through the cabinets for a pair of scissors or a knife to cut the sticky net open. "We are going to be _famous_," Jack almost crowed with excitement, his eyes glittering in the fluorescent light. "Front page of magazines for sure." His fingers closed around a hunting knife he'd stored up in one of the cabinets. "Jack Fenton, the man who solved the greatest paranormal scientific questions of his day. The Albert Einstein of ectoplasmic physics. The Galileo of supernatural astronomy."

As he started to cut through the sticky net – the goo not sticking to the 'human' knife – Maddie dug out a stopwatch and started to count the ghost's breathing. "About ten breaths a minute," she whispered softly to herself after a few minutes of silent watching, grabbing a clipboard to scratch notes on. "That's about the same as me."

"I wonder why he bothers breathing," Jack said, sawing at the last few strands of the net. "There's no reason to, other than maybe psychological."

Maddie shrugged and took the knife when Jack offered it to her, the last bit of the net sliced open. The ghost was still covered in the sticky, sleep-inducing goo and Jack was slowly pulling pieces of the net off the ghost's body and tossing them into the sink. "A remembered affectation?" she guessed, set down her clipboard, and headed up to the ghost's head to help remove the clinging pieces of net.

"Who knows." Jack muttered, yanking some more net off the boy's ankles. "Put that question down next to the one about why he didn't get knocked out the instant the sedative touched him."

"It worked on all the test subjects," Maddie murmured, carefully pulling the net away from the boy's face and using the knife to cut the hair that was stuck irrevocably to the netting. She winced, seeing her handiwork. The poor ghost would look like he'd been attacked by hedge clippers by the time she was done. "Maybe not so sticky next time, Jack."

"Definitely."

She'd worked about half of the boy's hair free when an odd question jumped into her mind. "I wonder," she whispered, stopping her work to strip off one of her gloves again. Jack hesitated from what he was doing to watch his wife press her fingers against the ghost's neck, perplexed by what she was thinking she'd find.

Even through the thick fabric of the boy's jumpsuit, she could feel the steady flutter of a pulse. Maddie's mouth dropped open in amazement, all thoughts of releasing the ghost from the net vanishing from her mind. "A heartbeat," she breathed.

Not noticing Jack's widening, disbelieving eyes, Maddie's bare fingers drifted up to touch the boy's cheek. She knew what to expect – freezing temperature, a strange semi-sold smooth feel to the skin, a slight zap of the ectoplasmic static charge that constantly hung around the spirit. What she expected, however, was not what she found.

"Jack…" She didn't know what to say beyond that, quickly tearing off her other glove to feel the boy's skin with both hands. Yes, there was the small static discharge but beyond that _nothing_ was right. The ghost's skin had the same texture as her own, solid and firm. Underneath the soft skin, she could feel, impossibly, the bone structure of the boy's face. "Ghosts don't have bones…" she whispered to herself as her fingers traced over the boy's face, pressing firmly against the boy's forehead. The 'skin' _should_ have given way under pressure – more like thick foam than skin – but her fingers refused to make a dent. The ghost's internal structure was rigid, unyielding, and entirely impossible.

What amazed her the most, however, was the temperature of the boy's skin. "Jack, feel this," she said, looking up at her husband with wide eyes.

Jack leaned forwards, taking off his glove and pressing the backs of his fingers softly against the ghost's face. "Woah…" he whispered, letting the improbable _warmth_ of the ghost seep into him. "That's, what… twenty-five degrees C? Still too cold for a human, but…"

"But impossible," Maddie finished, dazedly. "Ectoplasm _evaporates_ at fifteen degrees C. This ghost should be nothing more than a cloud of gas!"

Jack pulled his hand away and stood up, searching for the thermometer he knew was hidden inside one of the kits. "Ghosts maintain an internal temperature of fourteen degrees C," Jack mumbled to himself as he searched, "there's no way that what we felt is real. It was just some illusion of some kind. The lights, making it seem warmer than it could possibly be."

Maddie shook her head, continuing to slowly trace her fingers over the ghost's face. Every time she passed by the boy's mouth, she could feel that steady exhalation of cold air. When Jack dropped back down next to the gurney and put the thermometer's probe in Phantom's ear, she looked up at him, waiting.

"Twenty-three point four," Jack said numbly. "That's not possible."

Both of them sat silently for a long set of minutes, staring down at the ghost they'd managed to catch. The ghost that was breaking every one of their theories. The ghost that _shouldn't exist_.

"Let's get him out of the net," Maddie finally managed to get out. "Get him back to the lab. Run some… tests…" She hesitated, not sure what the tests would show anymore. Not entirely sure _which_ tests to run. They weren't going to be running some experiments merely to prove their theories anymore. These tests, this data, would _create_ new theories.

Jack nodded slowly, carefully starting to remove the remainders of the net still clinging tightly to their ghost. His mind was racing, confused and blank, as it tried to fit the pieces of the mystery together. "I just don't believe it," he muttered stubbornly. A sharp yank on a sticky piece of net took one of Phantom's gloves off of his hands. The instant it was away from the boy's body, it entire glove vanished into thin wisps of gas.

"Jack…"

"I saw it," Jack said with an unhappy, befuddled sigh. He didn't like being confused.

"The ghost must have been holding it solid – when it left the boy's field of control, it's unnaturally high temperature caused it to subliminate," Maddie theorized, reaching down to pull off Phantom's other glove. Like its partner, the moment it was all on its own, the glove disintegrated into a frozen mist. "Amazing."

Jack pulled on the last remaining bit of the net he could reach, freeing the ghost from the clutches of the sticky webbing. "Now what?" he asked, baffled. All of his plans had been thrown out the window by this unconventional spirit.

Maddie rocked back on her heels, studying the ghost they'd captured. "Follow through with our plan, I guess," she said slowly. "Do the ectoplasm sample."

With a nod, Jack grabbed a tray off the counter, the pre-set-up equipment glinting in the florescent light. He picked up the needle, then hesitated. "Do you think he's got veins and arteries then? Or can we stick it in anywhere?"

Maddie rubbed her hand over her face. "Maybe." She was quiet for a moment, thinking. "I know how to take blood samples, I can do it." Grabbing the knife back off the ground, she sliced off one of Phantom's sleeves and studied his arm for a moment. "I'm going to need some kind of tourniquet," she said softly, "so I can find his vein. If he's got one, anyway."

Jack dug up the old first aid kit and handed her the stretchy piece of elastic, holding onto the needle while she tied it around Phantom's arm. Both of them watched a dark green glowing vein slowly appear just under the ghost's skin. Maddie took the needle, pushed it through the boy's cold skin, and slowly drew back on the plunger. Fluid raced into the capsule.

She released the tourniquet and pressed a piece of gauze against the small hole before she allowed herself to glance at what she'd just extracted. The fluid was a dark color – muddy greenish brown – and glowing faintly.

"What is it?" Jack asked softly.

Shrugging, Maddie just continued to stare at the liquid. It wasn'tectoplasm, that much was for sure. "Run it through the test, just like we had planned," she said after a moment.

Jack took the needle from her. "How much longer before he regains consciousness?"

"A couple of hours, now that the net is gone," Maddie said slowly, wondering if she was right. The goo had been _designed_ to keep the ghost unconscious for several hours, at least. Whether or not it _would_ was something her mind was fiercely debating. In the mean time, though, her fingers mindless brushed a bit of the ghost's hair out of his face.

"I'll get this going, then we need to get back to the lab," Jack said quietly, his exuberance at finally catching Phantom having been distilled by the confusion of what they'd found. Even as he talked about his pet equipment, Jack's voice was dim. "I enhanced the analyzer, so we should have results by the time we get home."

"You drive. I'll stay back here just in case he wakes up."

Jack looked worriedly into his wife's eyes. He'd seen that look in her eyes before; it was the same look that she used to give the abandoned kitten she'd found in college, and any number of creatures she'd found since then. "He's a ghost, remember that, Mads. Just a ball of spirit and energy. Maybe some new kind of ghost, but he's still _just a ghost_."

Maddie nodded, but as Jack put the strange sample into the machines and headed towards the driver's seat, she didn't know what to think. Ghosts don't breathe. Ghosts don't have heartbeats. Ghost don't have such abnormally high body temperatures.

Shaking her head, she braced herself against the jerk of the GAV as it started to move. Perhaps most importantly – to her, anyways – ghosts don't inspire motherly instincts.

* * *

Jack was staring, frustrated, at the results his supped-up analyzer had spit out for them. The ghost, still sticky from the residue but free of the scraps of net, was lying on the floor of their basement lab, surrounded by a powerful ghost shield, still unconscious.

"What's it say?" Maddie asked as she came down the stairs, her eyes drifting to the sleeping ghost. She held out one of the steaming cups of coffee to her husband.

"Gibberish," Jack said, disgruntled, willingly trading the test results for the coffee.

She scanned them slowly, sipping at her coffee, and perched herself on one of the tall chairs. "Amino acids?" Her forehead wrinkled. "I thought ectoplasm was the antithesis of basic amino acid structure."

"It doesn't make any sense." Jack frowned in agreement. "There must be something wrong with the analyzer."

Maddie didn't say anything for a moment, gazing at the odd chemical compounds the analyzer had graphed. Molecular enzymes, a strange watery plasma, carbon molecules… "It looks more like blood than ectoplasm," she murmured. "Amino acids – that could be some form of DNA or RNA."

Jack snorted. "What are you trying to say, that he's human or something?"

Maddie shook her head, but bit her lip. "I'm saying… maybe… he's not… a ghost." She closed her eyes, trying to piece together her impossible theory. "Could it be possible that he's something in between? A ghost with human genetics?"

"A creature that's half human and half ghost?" Jack's voice clearly stated how illogical he thought that was.

Maddie let a small smile drift onto her lips and she chuckled. She was about to respond to him, clarify her idea a little more, but a soft groan interrupted her thoughts. Both adults turned around on their chairs to watch the young ghost curl up on his side. When his green eyes finally flickered open, glancing around in worry, Maddie pushed herself to her feet and tried to ignore the little maternal fluttering that wanted her to rush to his side.

From her spot in the shadows, Maddie watched the ghost scuttle backwards and press his back against the thick shield of electrified plasma, his fascinating eyes fixed onto her form. "Interesting," she whispered. A 'normal' ghost wouldn't have been able to stand touching the shield. Phantom treated it more like a solid wall than the electrified fence it was designed to be.

"What… why… Let me go!" Phantom demanded, his voice shaking as he stared at her.

"Not yet," Maddie answered, stepping out of the shadows and slowly approaching the ghost, crouching down just outside the shield. Her goggles reflected the harsh fluorescent lights and she saw Phantom shudder.

"Mad scientist much?" he muttered darkly, his eyes narrowing as he gazed at her. Jack, still sitting in the corner with his coffee and test results, chuckled.

Maddie just quietly watched him, studying his every movement, cataloguing his actions against what she knew about ghosts. He wasn't floating like a 'normal' ghost would have. He wasn't reacting to his emotions through the use of violence or manipulation, rather he seemed to be trying to cover up his fear with barvado. He wasn't, she noted with surprise, willing to look her in the eye for more than a few moments at a time.

She was faced with the very simple fact that Phantom _looked_ like a ghost. He had the same abilities as a ghost. Just looking at him, knowing what little she did about him, he _was_ a ghost.

But there was so many things wrong with him. One or two things and yes, she would have been okay thinking her theories were just off base. There was no way, not after twenty years of experiments and research and data, that they were _that_ wrong.

There were only two options. One: she was deluding herself and her paranormal theories were, in fact, impossibly wrong. Or two: she wasn't looking at a ghost.

Phantom looked up at her, fear and panic warring in his simmering gaze. "Let me go," he pleaded. His arms were almost visibly trembling by this point. "I don't want to be ripped apart."

Maddie didn't reply to that, but she already knew that she wouldn't be able to experiment on him… not until she knew more. She wasn't going to chance experimenting on something that might be sentient. The boy was in no real danger from either her or Jack.

This was their greatest experiment, finally captured and sitting in front of them. "What are you?" she whispered.

Tears were the only answer.

* * *

Uploaded September 1, 2008  
I am scientist, hear me roar. XD  
Thanks for reading!


	5. Sweet Victory

_A nod to the genius known as 'Lewis Carroll'. And the pretty lines aren't working today for some reason... and editing is evil today._

--

**Sweet Victory**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

--

""_Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe._"

Danny put his head down on his desk in the back row and closed his eyes, not listening to a word Mr. Lancer was saying. Why anyone – much less an out-of-shape bachelor – would be willing to stand up in front of a room and quote gibberish in such a loud, pompous tone was beyond Danny's comprehension. The man was quickly losing whatever tiny bit of respect Danny had given him.

"Mr. Fenton," the teacher said sourly, taking a break from his reading, "I'd appreciate you not falling asleep again."

Danny sighed and opened his eyes, arching an eyebrow at Mr. Lancer dubiously. He didn't say anything, but the '_why is this important?' _was inherent in his expression.

The teacher, after ten years in the profession, read it easily. "Someday it might just come in handy, Mr. Fenton," he answered with a vaguely evil grin. "Like Friday, during the quiz, when I find out if you were listening."

"Yeah," Danny replied quietly, attempting to focus on the teacher. It really wasn't Mr. Lancer's _fault _that it was so hard to concentrate. Every time a teacher started to talk, Danny stopped listening. It was a skill developed after years of hard work; the words that came out of the adults' mouths swam into mush inside his head without any conscious help on his part.

"_And, as in uffish thought he stood, the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, came whiffling through the tulgey wood, and burbled as it came!"_

Although, in this particular instance, Danny was _pretty_ sure that the teacher was actually speaking mush and no amount of work on Danny's part would turn it into actual English. As Mr. Lancer paused in his reading to expound on one of the points of the poem, Danny glanced out the window, wondering to himself what _whiffling _and _burbling_ sounded like.

A trickle of cold down his spine brought a long-suffering groan to his lips. As it condensed into an actual feeling – freezing claws curling around his heart, a bad taste in the back of his throat, a dead wind swirling through his mind – Danny sat up and raised his hand.

The teacher ignored him.

"Of course," Danny muttered, letting his hand drop back to his desk and thinking about his next move. A glance around the room told him that nobody except for the teacher and one brown-haired girl in the front row were interested in the lesson. Everyone else was looking around the room out of boredom – disappearing in his seat and walking out the nearest wall wasn't an option. There was only fifteen minutes of class left and it was, most likely, the Box Ghost again; he'd just have to wait.

Settling back in his chair, he tried to ignore the icy sensations running through his veins. With any luck, the ghost would just leave. He crossed his fingers and slouched down in his chair, gazing at the slowly ticking clock. Fourteen minutes and forty-five seconds. Fourteen minutes and thirty seconds. Fourteen minutes and…

Something dripped onto his paper, sizzling and burning a hole through last period's doodles. Danny's forehead furrowed as he gazed at it, curious. It evaporated almost instantly, a slight green haze hanging over his desk for a moment. Another drop of the strange liquid fell next to the previous one, taking out whatever notes Danny had managed to actually take in science class. Danny looked up.

The first thing he saw was the teeth: two long fangs hovered over his head. Then the rest of the face came into view. It was a glowing, supernatural rust color with dull-looking scales and mangy, patchy fur. Two gleaming garnet eyes focused on him as another drop of slobber dribbled out if its mouth and fizzled when it hit his desk.

"Okay," Danny breathed, his eyes wide and his breath catching in his throat. He wasn't sure how big the thing was since only its head was sticking through the wall – its body _could_ be puny – but its head was _huge _and that didn't bode well for the rest of it. "Not good."

"Ghost?" Sam asked, turning to look at him, then freezing with a gasp when she caught sight of the monstrous head hanging over Danny.

Mr. Lancer, still oblivious to the ghostly presence, was reading again. "_One, two! One, two! And through and through! The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head, he went galumphing back."_

Danny sank a little lower in his chair when the creature's eyes narrowed angrily. It took a deep, rattling breath. Heads throughout the classroom turned, eyes widening and gasps sounding as students caught sight of the thing in their midst. The trumpeting sound of its enraged bellow was what finally brought the teacher to a stumbling halt, glancing up in annoyed surprise. One of the creature's hands, complete with four razor-sharp claws, appeared through the wall and took a swipe at the sole adult in the room.

What happened next was complete chaos. Desks were overturned as students scrambled out of them. Mr. Lancer managed to throw himself out of the way of the gouging claws, but his desk was hit by a blast of the monster's energy and tumbled across the room to rest blocking the only way out of the room. Screams and yells pierced the air as the creature slumped its way into the room, its head banging against the ceiling and sending ceiling tiles raining down. Desks shattered, pipes crashed to the ground, and sharp pieces of the breaking floor flew around the room.

Reddish-colored dull scales were covered in a tangled, mucky, patchy coat of fur. It flapped its two tiny wings and flipped its snake-like tail, sending students racing for the relative safety of the corners. Twisting its head around as it stood on two legs, its front legs tucked up close like some sort of ancient dinosaur, it shrieked. The high-pitched tone warbled near the top of the spectrum for a moment.

After all of five seconds, Danny found himself surrounded by his fellow students, many of them holding cuts and gashes and what looked like broken arms. Sharp claws gouged long gashes in the floor and the monster's constantly moving tail smashed the remaining desks and chairs like toothpicks.

Suddenly, Sam was beside him, her eyes wide in disbelief. "Danny, do something!" she gasped. Blood was trickling down her face from a cut on her forehead.

"Like what?" Danny shot back, unable to take his eyes off of the creature that had invaded his classroom. "I can't…"

It was like Danny's voice was a magnet. The monster twisted around and glared in his direction, a dark growl filling the room as the red eyes narrowed. The tail flipped around and one of the students huddled on the other side of the room screamed in pain when it slammed her into a wall.

"Not good," Danny whispered again. The creature took a step, shaking the floor, its head lowering to stare the halfa straight in the eyes. Danny couldn't quite find it in him to be terrified, but there was a definite sense of fear snaking around his heart. This was a _big_ monster and it was _really_ close to a lot of people.

Danny scuttled backwards a few inches, pressing his back into the people behind him. He had to do _something_. If that meant turning ghost in front of his classmates, so be it. His secret wasn't worth someone dying for.

That's when he noticed that Sam had vanished. He glanced around frantically, finally spotting her edging along a wall towards the girl that had been knocked around. "Sam," he hissed, his voice not carrying over the low snarl of the monster that had taken another step towards him. "What are you _doing?_" he grumbled, turning his eyes back towards the creature.

The students around him were whimpering in terror as cold air condensed around the monster and flowed down over them. Danny took a breath, scrambling for an idea. His first thought was to just attack it but he hesitated, worried about people getting hurt if it got angry and started to flail. Maybe it would just leave. Even if he went ghost, there was no guarantee that he could get the monster out of the room before it attacked someone.

A scream from the other side of the room caught his attention and, unfortunately, the attention of the monster. It twisted around, eyes focusing on the small clump of students hiding there. Then, with a strange burbling sound, it swung its head towards Sam. The gothic girl froze, eyes wide as the creature sniffed her.

"Sam," he gasped, pushing himself to his feet and taking a few uncertain steps forwards, still not quite sure what to do about the monster in their midst.

The monster twirled suddenly, one of its clawed hands snapping out and catching Danny on the side. Danny gave a sharp shout as he suddenly found himself flying through the room, his arms pin wheeling as he tumbled uncontrollably.

"_DANNY!"_

Danny craned his neck and on one of his tumbles he caught a quick glimpse of Sam as the monster turned back to her, claws extended. Suddenly, his worries about someone getting hurt vanished; it was too late to worry. He just needed to do something.

His eyes narrowed and his ghost powers flared to life. Staying as human as he could, he caught himself in the air and turned a summersault just in time for his toes to hit the wall. He flipped the idea of 'down' in his mind just long enough to catch his balance on the new 'floor', coiled and ready to spring back towards his target. He looked up; the reddish creature glared over its shoulder, twin glowing eyes piercing back at him, razor-sharp claws hanging over Sam's exposed stomach.

With a quiet snarl, Danny threw himself back into the sky mere instants after he had landed. He hit the ground with a carefully controlled roll, snatching up the closest bit of sharp thing he could find. _Wood, round, about an arm long_, his mind informed him as he bounded to his feet. Springing into the air – going a little bit higher and farther than he could have without ghost powers – he landed, perfectly balanced, on the creature's back.

Molting, grimy hair slipped under his feet and he fell to his hands and knees, grabbing onto a handful of the fur with his free hand to keep himself on top of the creature. The scales that were half-hidden by the hair had sharp edges that dug into the palm of his hand. The monster shrieked, so high and loud that the windows shattered and eardrums through the room popped and bled.

Danny ignored it, clawing his way towards the mangy head. The creature bucked, flapping its vestigial wings in a desperate attempt to dislodge its passenger. "_Stop_," Danny screamed, his own voice unheard under the wailing sounds the monster was making.

Just as he reached the shoulders, it gave a wild twist, throwing its body from side to side and twisting angrily. Danny, out of ideas and instants from being thrown from his rather perilous perch, pushed as much energy as he could stand to lose into the wooden stick he was holding and slammed it down, sharp point first, into the monster's back. The wood broke through the skin and stabbed into its chest.

Blood, green and boiling cold, spewed out of the wound and soaked Danny in frozen liquid. His ghost side instantly started to soak up the massive amounts of energy being released from the ghost's blood, preventing his skin from being burned. The impossible cold, however, made his fingers go numb almost instantly. He lost his grip; the combination of the slippery blood and the lack of feeling in his fingers too much for even a half-ghost.

He dropped to the floor, rolling away from the thrashing creature, trying to get some feeling back into his hands. The ectoplasmic blood was evaporating quickly off of his clothes, creating a shroud of greenish mist around him. Getting to his knees, he stared up at the monster, his head starting to throb as the desperate creature's keening took on a new pain-filled note. Sam – who had managed to roll away when Danny stabbed the monster's back – was scrambling back into the crowd of students. After a desperate few seconds of clenching and unclenching his fingers, Danny picked up another bit of broken debris and stumbled to his feet.

"Shut up," he whispered; he wouldn't have been heard over the creature's screams even if he'd have yelled.

But, somehow, the monster heard him. It swung its head towards him, eyes glowing furiously and painfully. The high-pitched shriek cut off as it took another breath and a step forwards. Danny's ears were still ringing from the sound, the scream echoing around in his mind. Jaws opened and spittle flew into his face, the sticky smell of decaying flesh being carried by the monster's breath.

The tail suddenly swung around, catching Sam as she leaned forwards to try to drag the unconscious student to the relative safety of the corner. She rolled a few times, slamming her head into a wall and falling still.

"_SAM!"_ Danny screamed, his voice unheard over the ringing in his mind. Beyond the creature's body, she didn't move. The metal pole he'd picked up moved without thought, sparkling with emerald energy before it scored a direct hit on the monster's slobbery jowls. Blood dripped from the creature's newest cut as it set up a rumbling growl, the raw energy in the liquid burning tiny holes in the linoleum tiles before it evaporated into the air.

Danny snarled right back, forgetting about the human watchers for a moment. His own power, no longer able to be contained in his frail human form, shimmered in the windows to his soul and danced in the air around him. The monster's fangs, longer than Danny's hands, were inches from his face, but Danny just narrowed his eyes in fury and bared his own teeth.

His arm slammed upwards, the sharp tip of the metal pole slicing through the side of the monster's face and taking out one of its eyes. Blood spurted – evaporating and burning – but Danny didn't pay it any mind. He danced back away from the creature, his feet sure and nimble on the rough surface of the ruined floor. His ghost powers were keeping his balance, intangibility as flicker of thought away, his ability to fly making him light and agile.

The monster couldn't catch up to the powerful, quick-moving halfa. It reared onto its hind legs, shaking its head painfully, bellowing. The ceiling shook as students screamed – the burning, freezing liquid splattering onto them, fear coiling in their hearts. Human flesh sizzled, hair charred, and the temperature dropped even further. The deadening cold was seeping into their very cores, making them shiver in terror and in an instinctual attempt to stay warm.

Danny tried to ignore the sights and smells of his classmates, focusing on the creature's mangy head. _Stay as human as possible_. He gritted his teeth, not yet willing to lose his human form for the fight. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mr. Lancer edge towards his unconscious friend, grab her, and start to drag her towards the others.

He stalked forwards, brandishing his broken piece of pipe like a sword. It glowed with the energy he was pouring into it – making it much more deadly than it normally would have been. The monster suddenly dropped down onto all fours, its massive claws slamming into the ground inches from him, its body already twisting around to snap at him.

Danny swung his pipe around like a bat, slicing open another wound across the creature's head, then jumped out of the way of its slashing fangs. Holding the bit of metal towards the creature, he walked in a small circle in the direction of the monster's blind side, forcing it to move its head to keep him in sight. The room rumbled as it growled darkly.

Another slash, then another, and another. Greenish blood was flowing out of a half-dozen wounds across the monster's face. Its bloody-red eye was fixed straight on his face, rage simmering behind the dilated pupils. It took a deep, rumbling breath.

Danny rocked back on his heels for a moment, then flashed forwards. The metal of the pipe glowed with emerald energy as it hung, poised over the creature's head, before it slammed down, driving straight between the monster's fiery eyes. The pipe sizzled and steamed as the energy from the ghost's blood started to instantly erode it away, the melting metallic smell meshing angrily with the smell of the already-spilled human and ghost blood.

The creature, just as Danny had feared, flailed dangerously. It bellowed in pain, bowing and flexing its back, claws and tail and wings going in every direction. Students screamed and cowered, a few of the monster's wilder thrashes scoring hits on students. One boy's leg was gored from knee to ankle; another's back was ripped open, blood flowing crimson onto the floor.

Then the ghost monster fell silent. It twitched a few more times, then began to disintegrate. It took only a matter of seconds for the entire creature to evaporate into a foul green mist, Danny left standing, gasping, in the middle of the whole mess. The floor was gouged and scratched and horribly burned, the room in shambles, outsiders desperately working at the broken door to get through and offer some help.

"Sam," Danny whispered, racing across the room, his strange aura vanishing into the supernatural vapors. He dropped down next to her, already noting the fact that she was still breathing, her color still good. "Sam?"

"I'm fine," she rasped, barely audible over the screams of terror and shrieks of pain of the other students, one eye opening slightly. "_And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?"_

Danny stared at her in incomprehension for a moment, then shook his head in slow disbelief. "Stay still," he ordered shortly, "you might have a concussion."

"_Might?"_ she muttered with a bit of a crazy chuckle, waving her hand a little. "I prolly cracked my skull open like an egg."

"Stay still." Danny got up and turned around, looking for something he could do to help. With a painful screech, the people in the hallway finally got the teacher's shattered desk to move, raced into the room, and stared around in disbelief for a moment.

By the time the paramedics arrived, Danny was sitting quietly in a corner a few rooms away with the rest of the 'mostly unhurt', thinking over what had happened and what would happen next. Right now, nobody was really questioning what he'd done – but they would. He'd been covered in the blood that had so horribly burned the rest of his classmates, and he hadn't gotten anything worse than some redness from the cold. Some of the trick's he'd done were _almost_ inhuman. And the aura he'd pulled at one point would, no doubt, come back to bite him.

He breathed out slowly.

"Danny?" His mom poked her head through the door and he fixed a half-smile on his face. She slipped into the room. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Mom," he said softly. Then his smile turned a little quirky, pushing his worries out of his mind for the moment. If nobody had figured anything out yet, it wasn't likely they would get something from this. "Did you hear? I killed the Jabberwocky."

--

Uploaded September 2, 2008  
'Monster' inspired by the official pictures of Carroll's Jabberwock.  
Thanks for the review!


	6. Bedside

_Angst. DRIPPING angst. Was gonna save the plot for International Angst Day… but that's a month away still._

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**Bedside  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

She stood still and watched, tears flowing down her cheeks, as the screams started to punctuate the hot afternoon air of the hospital. Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself, her whole body trembling with the desire to do _something_, to do _anything…_

_Oh God, please, just do something…_

It was so hard to watch, knowing that there was nothing that could be done. The fact that he was _already_ gone was no comfort – the form that was on the bed still convulsed, tense and full of pain, ripping unconscious shrieks of torment from his lips. His body arched and twisted, seeking a way to escape the agony that was ripping through every cell of his body.

She didn't know what to do but watch. No amount of morphine would dull the pain he was feeling, not even take of the edge, not without killing him outright. Even though he was dying – dead already, maybe – she couldn't steal his life away, not even to ease the pain. She couldn't kill him. Not him. Not ever.

Not her son. He had to stay, he had to live, he had to get over this. There had to be a way.

She couldn't turn away from the sight of her son on his death bed. She couldn't run and hide from the screams like the rest of her family had done, crying their own tears of pain until his died away, taking his mortal existence with him. All she could do was stand watch, her back pressed against the other wall of the room, her body wanting to flee but her mind refusing to let it, committing his torture to her memory. Every second of this horrible moment needed to be carved into her mind. Like a photograph she never wanted to forget. She never wanted it to dull or fade. It needed to be there forever.

It was all her fault. She'd been the one to come up with the idea. She'd been the one that ordered the parts. She'd been the one to 'fix' it. She'd been the one who hadn't paid enough attention. He walked into it, not knowing, not understanding. And it was her fault.

She'd let it happen. And then, even worse, she didn't notice. Months – _years – _passed before she noticed that there was something _wrong_, something desperately, horribly, terribly _wrong_… And she could have _done something _back then. Back then, when he wasn't really dead, not yet. Dying, but not dead…

The doctor beside her was talking, but she couldn't understand it – not a word was spoken to her that she could actually hear. All of her thoughts were centered around the writhing figure on the bed. The doctor was trying to get her attention. He shook her shoulder a little, asked her to say something.

She didn't. She just stared. She needed to remember this, the torment that she was putting her son through. It was all her fault and she was going to pay for it for the rest of her life… and afterwards.

When the doctor left her side, she didn't say anything. Her eyes, red from tears and lack of sleep, fixed on her pain-filled child. She wished she could take his pain, will it away, take it into her own body. She'd die for him – if it were possible. No mother wanted to see her child, her own flesh and blood, dying like this. No child should ever have to die, no parent should ever have to bury their sons and daughters, but to die like _this…_

To die in such pain, with no help, with nothing coming, with no cure, with no _hope_.

Slowly, she realized that the screams were subsiding, the pain-filled shrieks cascading down into a raspy moan. The doctor, standing by the IV, tears in his eyes, reached out a hand and touched her son's arm. "No…." She breathed, taking an unsteady step forwards, clutching the cold metal rails with her hands, staring down at the too-pale skin and the sunken eyes of her child, understanding flooding into her mind. _Morphine – enough to dull the pain… enough to end a life. _"Not yet."

"He's not going to suffer anymore," the doctor said softly, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"Not yet," she sobbed, filled with panic as her son's chest rose and fell, then didn't rise again. "Please, please, not yet… don't. My fault. Please." Her words fell into a jumble as she clutched the hard bed rails, falling to her knees.

Strong arms wrapped around her, a solid form pressing against her, tears that weren't her own wetting her neck. "I told him to, Mads," the voice rumbled, holding her tight. She screamed at the voice, terrified and horrified and full of pain at what it was saying. "He's gone. He doesn't need to suffer anymore."

"_NO!_" she shrieked, but she didn't fight the arms holding her. It was a denial to the heavens, a plea for something to be different, a desperate wish to change the past.

Radiation.

Cancer.

Every time he'd changed into his ghost form, the radiation from the ectoplasm pushed the cancer a little further, a little faster, a little more virulent. By the time he'd felt any pain at all, known that there was any problem, he had been almost more cancer than human.

Metastasized.

Inoperable.

Two months to live.

Exactly four years to the day of that August afternoon when her son walked into her greatest invention, he finally finished dying.

And it was all her fault.

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Uploaded September 3, 2008  
Kinda raw, not really edited. Just screamed into my head a half-hour ago.  
Thanks for reading.


	7. Hotel California

_Okay. Posting this and /hopefully/ replying to those 1oo-something reviews sitting in my inbox from the past couple of days._

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**Hotel California  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

I stumbled a little when my boots hit the dusty ground, tired. I'd been flying through the ghost zone for hours searching for this place and, despite what most people tended to think, flying is _exhausting_/ It takes more effort to fly someplace than to walk to it.

When in the ghost zone, however, the 'walking' option is severely limited. And when certain, will-remained-unnamed _parents_ take apart a certain _Specter Speeder_ for _parts_ without telling me…

Let's just say that flying wasn't my first choice for a long-range search and retrieve mission, but it quickly became the only one left to choose. There was no way I was going to let her sit in the ghost zone longer than I needed to.

I stood still for a moment, my eyes wandering over the strange juxtaposition of the ghost zone's green, hazy, door-filled sky and the patch of desert-like road. The road (along with about ten feet of desert on each side) wound through the ghost zone's sky, hanging on nothing. Unlike the frigid temperatures of the rest of the zone, there was a heavy heat in the air here, broken only by a strange breeze as the zone's cool wind blew across the road now and then.

The device hanging off my belt beeped softly and I glanced down at the readout. She was close – it had detected a human nearby – ahead, along the road. I looked up and studied the road, then started to walk. I could have flown, I could have gotten there faster, but I was tired. Flying at the moment would have been like asking you to get up and run again after you just finished a marathon. My mind balked at the thought.

So I walked. The heat was, at first, a welcome change from the cold, but it quickly grew to be frustratingly hot. I could feel it radiating up through my boots and it was causing me to sweat. Since this Hazmat suit doesn't breathe at all, it was all trickling down my back, making me very uncomfortable and making me feel a lot more tired than I actually was. Add that to the heady, drowsy smell of the desert flowers… I wasn't surprised when I stumbled again.

I was tired. My eyes were trying to close on me and my head felt heavy. That scene from _The Wizard of Oz_ fluttered through my head – you know, the one where Dorothy and her entourage walk through the poppy field and fall asleep – and I hesitated, looking around. I wasn't any good to anyone if I couldn't keep my eyes open. I needed to find a place to stop and rest… a place somewhat safe from prying eyes and prank-prone ghosts, and away from the dizzying smell of the flowers.

That was when I saw it. There, up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light. She was _there_, she had to be.

Suddenly, I was wide awake again. That's one of the good points about being half-ghost – with ghosts, it's all mind over matter, meaning they're only tired if they _think_ they are – and I get to partake of some of that too. If I can 'forget' I'm exhausted, it becomes reality for me. At least, for a while… it'll eventually catch up to me and I'll be paying dearly for this trick later. All I could do was hope that it was 'later' enough that I was out of the ghost zone.

It took just minutes of walking until the building came into view. It was southwest mission-style, orange-pink walls and arched openings, a domed bell tower, and a thick low wall running around the perimeter. And standing in the doorway…

"Sam," I whispered. She was leaning against the opened door, dressed in a clingy black and purple dress, her hair piled up on her head, playing with a candlestick. "Sam!"

She looked up, a smile breaking out on her face. Without thinking, I jumped over the wall and rushed up to my girlfriend. Her beautiful amethyst eyes seemed a little unfocused, a little blurry, but I chalked it up to being trapped in the ghost zone as I swept her up to kiss her. "Come on, Sam, let's get out of here."

She pushed away a little, breaking out of the kiss too soon for me. "I've got to show you something," she said softly as an echoing bell started to toll in the distance, twisting out of my grasp and taking a few steps into the darkened mission. She stopped long enough to light the candle she'd been carrying, and looked back at me. The candlelight illuminated her features and I unconsciously swept my eyes over her form for a moment. When she took another step into the darkness, I followed.

I hesitated a few steps past the doorway, glancing over my shoulder towards the door, uncomfortable in the creepy darkness. All the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end and I felt like I was being watched. "Something doesn't feel right, Sam."

She shook her head in response to my complaint, not turning around to look at me. "Come see this. It's important."

Grinding my teeth, I followed as she showed me the way to this thing she wanted me to see. "Something doesn't feel right," I said again, moving quickly to catch up to her. I was worried about this place and I was very concerned that the exhaustion I'd pushed away earlier would catch up to me before we could make it to safety. "We need to get back to Earth. Come on."

When I grabbed her hand to pull her to a stop, she slipped it out of my grasp and kept walking. "Trust me." I followed silently after that admonition, my heart beating a little louder and faster with every few steps. I _did_ trust her… but I was on edge from this place.

The candlelight flickered on the adobe walls, leaving us in a pool of light in an otherwise black abyss. Before us and behind us was nothing but darkness. The warm heat was still pressing down on us from all sides, and the gently scent of the desert flowers still played in the air. And, coming from somewhere up ahead, was music.

_"…the Hotel California. Such a lovely place, such a lovely place, such a lovely face…"_

"Is that the Eagles?" I whispered, startled, drawing up short to listen to the haunting voices and guitars.

Sam looked over her shoulder and smiled at me. "Come see this."

That's when I finally saw it – the candlelight flickered in just the right way to catch the red glitter behind her amethyst eyes. She was possessed – that was the reason for the unfocused, blurry look to her eyes earlier. I snarled, instantly falling into a crouch and setting the air thrumming with energy. "Get out of my girlfriend," I snapped.

The ghost in Sam's body laughed, pulling her face into a menacing parody of Sam's beautiful smile. "Come and catch me, lover-boy, and maybe I'll give her back." Sam vanished.

"No!" I started to run forwards through the absolute darkness, pulling energy out of the air to make a tiny ball of brightly burning ectoplasm. Everything had a sickly, creepy, green tinge, but at least I wouldn't trip over anything as I ran. I glanced down at the small device on my belt, tracking Sam's movements. She was up ahead. Digging in a little more, I half-sprinted, half-flew up the passageway, fury lending me strength. "Nobody possesses my girlfriend." Then, with a tinge of desperation to my voice, I whispered, "Sam, hang on."

"…_any time of year, any time of year, you can find it here…"_

Light bloomed up ahead, the music getting louder as I ran. I skidded to stop just outside the ring of light, letting my ectoplasmic flashlight disintegrate, and peered through the doorway. The large courtyard was lit with hundreds of candles, flickering in the mirrors on the ceiling like a sky full of stars, and dozens of ghosts were dancing in time to the music.

There, in the middle, was Sam. She was dipping and twisting among the ghosts, her short dress swirling around her thighs as she twirled, surrounded by male ghosts that were watching her dance with smiles on their faces. Sam's body moved and flexed in very female ways to the beat of the music and the ghosts' grins grew a little wicked.

My hands clenched into fists and I strode into the courtyard, emerald energy flaring around me. "Stop that!" I growled at the ghost possessing Sam. Most of the ghosts in the room backed away from me, still dancing and gyrating to the music.

One of the guys watching Sam didn't take my threat seriously enough and continued to eye my girlfriend for a bit too long. I debated for a split second before deciding that punching him would be more satisfying than blasting him. I pulled my fist back, slammed it forwards, and then watched – more than a little pleased – when the ghost reeled backwards with ectoplasmic blood dripping from his broken nose. "My girlfriend," I snapped at him, then twisted back to Sam, "so _get out_."

"You see them dance?" Sam whispered, her voice silky and seductive and barely audible over the throb of the music. "How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat." The ghost twirled Sam's body a little, pushing it up against mine and creating friction in just the right places. "Some dance to remember, some dance to forget."

I was done with this ghost – not that I really minded what Sam was doing, but I minded that it wasn't _Sam_ doing it. Glowing energy formed around my hand as I brought it up, twisting the frequency of the ectoplasm so that it would drive out the invader without hurting my Sam. "Out."

Sam slipped away from me with a laugh, her sparkling eyes glittering with red lights. "No. I like this body." Then, before I could shoot her, disappeared into the dancing ghosts.

"No," I hissed softly, throwing myself forwards to follow her. I pushed ghosts unceremoniously out the way, employing my elbows and ghost shields when necessary to clear a path, aiming for the door I could almost see on the other side of the room. "Sam…"

"…_such a lovely face. They're living it up at the Hotel California. What a nice surprise, what a nice surprise, bring your alibis_…"

I caught just a glimpse of Sam's body as she passed through the door. A few more moments of effort and I was clear of the dancing ghosts, stumbling slightly on the courtyard blocks as I ran. I caught my balance on the doorway, staring at the spectacle on the other side of the door. Huge tables had been set up, a feast of ghostly proportions overflowing from everywhere. Rotten meats, maggot-filled pies, moldy breads… Ghosts were everywhere, digging in to the food like there was no tomorrow.

And in the front of the room was a large, overweight spirit. His glowing red eyes were surveying the ghosts in the room, a contented grin on his face. I knew, deep down inside, that this was the ruler of this piece of the ghost zone, and it made my stomach clench in horror.

"He told us to eat and to dance and have fun, so we do," Sam's voice whispered in my ear.

I twisted around to look into her amethyst-red eyes. Fists clenched at my sides.

She laughed at the look in my eyes, her voice a soft melody compared to the sounds of the ghosts eating the disgusting feast. Her fingers traced along my arm, then went up to play with the hairs at the back of my neck, Sam's body tight against mine. "We are all just prisoners here of our own device," she breathed. "We can't ever leave."

My hand came up to press against her stomach, energy flaring. The ghost inside of Sam screamed as my power slammed into her, then the ghost pulled out and reformed a few feet away. Sam's body slumped against mine and I gathered her up in my arms. The ghost's red eyes fixed on mine for a few moments before she turned and slipped between the tables, headed for her master.

Turning around, I ran. I skirted the edges of the dancing, listening to the spectral band fall into a guitar solo, holding Sam's body close to mine. Energy flared around me like a dozen candles as I started to race through the pitch-black hallway, headed towards the door. I had to find the passage back to the place I was before.

My legs gave out suddenly and I gasped, collapsing to the ground. The energy around me vanished from my grasp and darkness pressed in. Holding Sam's warm, limp body close to me, I tried to get up, but my legs were like spaghetti and wouldn't respond.

I'd run out of time. The exhaustion I'd pushed away earlier had caught up with me.

"Sam…" I whispered. My only chance was to wait for my body to recover some of the missing energy and hope that nobody found us until I woke up again. I'd waited too long. I'd pushed myself too far. 

"I'm sorry, Sam." My eyes were trying to close, my arms having a tough time holding on to Sam's body. I was about to pass out from lack of energy.

A candle appeared at the end of the hallway, the ghost carrying it glimmering softly in the darkness. Then he was right in front of me, leaning over me, his grin glittering in the shadows. My eyes closed and the last thing I remembered before passing out was his words and the soft, haunting sounds of the guitar in the background.

"Relax," said the night man, "we are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."

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Uploaded September 4, 2008  
'Hotel California' (c) the Eagles, not me.  
Thanks for reading!


	8. Insanity

**_WARNING: _**_This drabble is almost 'M'. **BLOOD, GUTS, and DESCRIBED GORE**. Please do not read if that does not float your boat._

_**YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.**_

* * *

**Insanity  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

Phantom giggled, reaching outward and picking up the struggling bird. A quick twist, a soft crack of a neck, and the bird was limp in his hands. He yanked on the bird's wing for a moment, using just a hint of ectoplasmic power to help sever muscles and ligaments, and the wing detached from the body with a tearing, sloppy sound. Warm blood oozed out of the wound and dripped all over Phantom's hands and legs.

Scooping some of the sticky, red liquid up with his hands, he began drawing. Handprints, swirls, streaks, and strange-looking runes soon covered the wall of the cave from the floor to the ceiling. Phantom could feel the blood drying on his fingers, leaving them coated in a crusty, red-black glove. The spots that had jumped through the air were drying on his face, making smiling uncomfortable, and making his hair stiff.

Stepping back for a moment, he held the corpse of the bird in one hand like a painter's pot, the bloody hole where the wing had attached facing upwards to prevent the blood from dripping out. Looking at his creation, Phantom dipped a finger into the bird and poked around until he found the liver. He pulled it out, grinning crazily at the way the ligaments stretched like pizza cheese before snapping, and popped it into his mouth.

Making a few adjustments to his design with his bloody fingers, he tossed the used bird over his shoulder, ignoring the way it smacked stickily into the other wall. Then, licking his fingers a few times to get the worst of the blood off his hands, he walked forwards. He pressed one hand against the wall and concentrated.

Energy swirled up through him like a tidal wave, making his stomach clench and his muscles tingle pleasantly. His arm was almost twitching at all the potential energy he was focusing, his eyes sparkling at the feeling of pure power. With a sigh, he released it into the wall, watching as the supernatural energy instantly flowed towards death. Like a magnet, the glowing energy was drawn to the blood he had smeared across the cave wall, making the strange signals sparkle and shine in the darkness.

It was a picture of a giant bird – what else would it be – drawn at its moment of death, blood dripping from thousands of wounds and its head thrown back in torment. Glowing bones shown against the dark rock, shimmering and broken, flames leaping up to dance at its shattered feet. Scattered around the too-large bird were small images of ghosts, one of them, no doubt, Phantom himself, watching the bird's demise. The picture was beautiful, full of emotion, and brimming with the possibilities of death.

Phantom grinned, an insane sparkle to his eyes as he based in the wonder of his latest creation. All over the cave's walls were the slowly fading remains of several local creatures – a raccoon, a wolf, a deer – but Phantom figured this bird was his best. He was finally perfecting his art.

Slowly getting to his feet, Phantom turned and walked past the corpse of the bird, uncaring about it anymore. What did a pile of flesh mean to such an artist? Blood was his medium, death was his inspiration, and his own particular brand of power made his creations stand out.

Now, however, he was ready for the big show. The picture he'd been planning for all the months he'd been in hiding. It would require the purest, most perfect blood, taken from the purest, most perfect person. And it wouldn't be hidden in some dank cave. No – it would spread out all over city hall, or the school, or… the possibilities were endless. Perhaps he'd have to do more than one picture. That way all of the city would be able to admire his work.

His grin grew into a full out smile, his green eyes sparkling in the pure darkness. Phasing through the roof of the cave, Phantom turned towards the small city of Amity Park, his thoughts focused around the girl with the blood that would make his artwork shine: Samantha Manson.

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Uploaded October 1, 2008  
'Twas going to continue, but lost all ambition.  
Thanks for reading!


	9. Mirror Mirror

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_Two Novashots today. You missed one. :)_

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**Mirror, Mirror  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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It was a calm, perfect day – no darkness, no storms, and most definitely no night. More specifically, it was one of those perfect afternoons where nothing seems to be able to go wrong. Everything makes sense and everything just _works_.

Maddie Fenton, dressed in her normal blue jumpsuit, was sitting at her 'home office' (otherwise known as her kitchen table), feet up, a manila folder seated in her lap. Two grainy pictures were the objects of her intense scrutiny. One was a half-hearted, amateur attempt at getting a picture of something 'paranormal' for the newspaper, the other was a still from a local security camera. Both needed to be authenticated before they could go out and either make the news or be used in small claims court.

With nobody else in the house, Maddie was enjoying the total silence. Both of her children were at school and her third child (the larger, older one she'd chosen to marry) had been shooed off to the store an hour previously with a list he was, no doubt, ignoring. Locked in her own house and left to her own devices, she'd spread her work out on the kitchen table and settled down to get a lot done.

When the phone suddenly rang, shattering the welcome quiet, Maddie jumped a little in surprise. Then, laughing softly to herself and in no way realizing the importance of the upcoming phone call, she reached over and snagged the phone. Still gazing down at her pictures, she said, "Fentonworks, Maddie speaking."

The male voice on the line had a distinct western drawl, tinged with a lazy, distracted feel. "Hello, Ma'am. I'm calling from the San Francisco Police Department. I'm trying to locate the parent and/or guardian of Daniel Fenton."

Maddie sat up, setting her pictures onto the table to give the phone her complete attention. "I'm Maddie Fenton, Danny's mother."

"My name's Officer Grisby," the man drawled. "A youth matching your son's description was picked up about an hour ago for trespassing on government property. Refused to give any name other than 'Danny.'"

"San Francisco?" Maddie said, confused, as she tried to figure out how many _hours_ (if not days) it would take to travel to that city. "I live in Michigan… that can't be my son."

"Yes, I'm aware of where you live. However, we ran his fingerprints through the system and they match your son's."

Blinking, Maddie took the phone away from her ear to stare at it, as if looking at the phone would help make sense of what the man was saying. "_My _Danny."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"San Francisco."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"_California_."

The man sounded a little annoyed as he said, "Yes, Ma'am."

Maddie could feel the backs of her eyes start to hurt. "Danny ate breakfast with me this morning, then went to school. He's not in California."

"Fingerprints don't lie, Ma'am." The man's voice sounded tired of answering all her denials. "We even double checked it against the photo in his records – it's your son sitting in our holding cell. We'll need a parent, guardian, or an adult over the age of twenty-one to come pick him up. The White facility isn't choosing to press charges, so he's free to go."

Maddie looked around her kitchen in disbelief, letting out a deep breath. "I still don't…"

"I know it doesn't seem to make sense, but it is your son. Now, when we can we expect someone?" the man said, obviously tired of keeping up the conversation.

"Um…" She rubbed a hand over her face in frustration. She still had no clue what was going on, but her confusion was quickly morphing into anger. What in the world was Danny doing in _California _on a school day? She was going to _kill_ that boy when she got her hands on him. "I don't know anyone in California. I'll have to get a plane ticket-"

_"HEY MOM_!"

"Danny, she's on the phone, don't scream so loud."

"What are you, my mother?"

"Hey, Mrs. Fenton."

Maddie broke off, twisting around to stare at the three figures that had walked in through the back door. As Sam and Tucker raided the fridge for some cans of soda, Danny dropped his latest English test on top of her photos. "B-plus," he stated happily. "Told you."

Maddie just blinked, her bubble of anger bursting into confusion, and watched her son and his two friends tromp into the living room. "Uh…" She stared at the door to the living room, then down at the phone she was still holding. "Officer…"

"Grisby, Ma'am."

"Yes. My son just walked through the door."

This time, the confused silence came from the other side of the phone. "Are you sure, Ma'am?" he said slowly.

Maddie glared at the phone. "Crystal."

"Strange." The officer was silent for a moment, papers rustling in the background. "He matches the fingerprints, the picture, and the description."

"Well, he's obviously not my son. Maybe you should recheck your tests."

"Maybe…" He clicked his tongue. "Well, sorry for the interruption. We'll redo the tests and we'll get back to you. This sure is a strange situation."

"Yes," Maddie said a little waspishly, "it is."

"Have a nice rest of your day, Ma'am." The line clicked.

As the dial tone flooded out of the handset, Maddie shook her head, replaced the phone on the wall, and forgot all about it.

* * *

Three days later, the furthest thing from Maddie's mind was the odd phone call from San Francisco. She was busy enjoying her breakfast of toast and jam and reading the Saturday morning newspaper. There really wasn't anything interesting in it, but nobody else was awake yet – it was only nine o'clock – and it was a way to pass the time.

When the phone rang, it was a welcome distraction. "Fentonworks," she said into the phone, lodging it between her ear and her shoulder so her hands would be free, "Maddie speaking."

"Maddie Fenton? Mother of Daniel Fenton?"

"Yes…" Maddie hesitated, reaching up to take the phone in a hand.

"Sorry to bother you so early. My name is Janet; I work for the social services division of the Amity Park Police Department. A juvenile was transferred into my care last night from a different department and I'm doing some follow-up phone calls, double checking some of the facts." The woman laughed a little. "They're not making any sense."

Maddie relaxed a little when she realized nothing was wrong. "How can I help?"

Maddie could hear the grateful smile in the woman's voice when she talked. "It says here you received a call from the San Francisco Police Department a few days ago? About a teenager they thought was your son?"

"Yes." Maddie sank back down in her chair. "He's not my son though – Danny walked in the door as we were talking."

"And Danny doesn't have any identical twins or anything, does he?"

"No, he doesn't." Maddie shook her head. "What is all this about?"

The woman hesitated. "The juvenile that's in my care is the boy from San Francisco. We've run his fingerprints through the system seven times and come up with the same results each time. His fingerprints are an exact match for Daniel Fenton's." There was silence for a second. "Fingerprints aren't duplicated between people – they're unique for every person. The boy we've got here _is_ Daniel Fenton. Are you sure…"

"Yes," Maddie said sharply. "I'm sure that's not my son."

For a few beats, Maddie could hear papers rustling in the background. "I know it's a bit to ask, but would it be possible for you to come in and see him?"

"He's not my son!" Maddie said. "Why would I want to come in and see him?"

The woman sounded frustrated on the phone. "I need to figure out who he is and all the evidence I've got points to him being your son. He's refusing to talk to anyone to explain why he was trying to sneak into the White facility in San Francisco and I thought that maybe, just maybe, you showing up would get something out of him. If nothing else, you could see him and make a visual claim that he'd definitely not your son."

Maddie ran a hand through her hair. She really didn't want to go talk to them, but it would get them to stop calling and thinking that her son was in their custody. "Fine," she said after a moment, sighing.

"Excellent!" the woman said. "I'm here until four o'clock today if you want to stop by. It won't take more than fifteen minutes of your time."

"Excellent," Maddie repeated softly and hung up the phone. Shaking her head slowly, she sat back down at the kitchen table to finish her toast. She tried not to think it, but a thought germinated in her head anyways. Setting her plate in the kitchen sink, she headed upstairs and paused at her son's door. Slowly pushing it open, she glanced in at Danny. This was her son… right?

* * *

It was a little after eleven thirty when Maddie pushed open the door leading to the social services office. "Hi," she said to the desk clerk, "I'm looking for a Janet? She wanted me to come in and talk about some boy from San Francisco."

The man behind the desk grinned. He pointed to the door to his left and said, "Go on in. She's waiting for you."

"Thanks," Maddie smiled, hitched her bag up higher on her shoulder, and stepped through the door.

The woman sitting behind the desk looked up, brushing her black hair out of her eyes. "Maddie Fenton?" she asked with a small smile.

Maddie nodded and looked around the room. Her gaze fell on a figure sitting in one of the corners and she froze. Messy black hair, sapphire blue eyes, ragged blue jeans… "Woah," she breathed, her eyes wide. Her son – or some incredibly close copy of her son – was slouched in one of the chairs.

"You see the dilemma," Janet said simply, gesturing towards the sulking boy in the corner. "He _matches_ the picture. He _matches_ the fingerprints. We'd do a DNA test, but we're pretty sure he'd match that too. For all legal intents and purposes, we're looking at Daniel Fenton."

"But… my son is out with his friends…" Maddie said softly, unable to wrench her eyes away from the strange boy.

Janet sighed. "I hate to ask… but can you prove that?"

"Prove?"

"Can you prove that your son is somewhere else and not sitting in front of me." She put her arms up on her desk.

Maddie nodded. "I… can… call him," she said distractedly, not entirely sure what to think. The boy in the chair looked up and met her eyes, flinched, then wrapped his arms tighter around his chest and settled lower in his chair.

"Could you get him to come in? Maybe redo his fingerprints for us? I mean, it's always possible that something just got mixed up in the system during input."

"Yeah." Maddie tore her eyes away from the Danny look-alike to dig through her bag for the cell phone Danny insisted she carry with her.

"You're causing me nothing but headaches, kid," Janet said to the boy in the corner.

The boy shrugged. "You _could_ just let me go."

Maddie closed her eyes, a shiver running down her spine. She would have bet her right kidney if someone asked her if her son was speaking. How was it possible for them to be so close?

"You got a parent or guardian I can call?" Janet asked.

With a sigh, the boy shook his head and went back to moodily staring out the window.

Maddie's fingers finally closed around her cell phone and she took a deep breath. It was time to call her son.

* * *

An hour later, Danny was seated in a chair right next to his look-alike, both of them shooting strange looks at each other. Maddie's head was spinning in circles, looking from one to the other. The longer she sat and watched them, the more differences she could see. Physically, they were practically identical; the other Danny was a little skinnier, her Danny a little more tanned.

It was their mannerisms that gave them away. Her Danny was nervously tapping his foot and occasionally rubbing the back of his neck. The other Danny was slouched in his chair and picking at his fingers, his feet hooked around the legs of his chair and, other than his fingers, staying almost perfectly still. Her Danny kept looking up at her to see how she was taking all of this. The other Danny kept looking out the window.

"Well, this is the icing on the cake," Janet said angrily as she walked into the room and dropped two folders on the desk. "You two have the _exact_ same fingerprints. Daniel Fenton, meet Daniel Fenton."

A small smirk touched the lips of the other Danny for a moment before fading away. The two boys exchanged another unreadable look. Her Danny's eyes narrowed slightly.

Janet dropped into her chair and sighed. "Nobody seems to know what to do next. We have two boys in this office… and according to every legal mode of identification, they both belong to you, Maddie."

"I…" Maddie hesitated, shaking her head. "They're not _both_ mine!"

"I know," Janet said sourly. "Bosses words, verbatim: Legal mode of identification. They're both yours. The Amity Park PD 'officially' washes its hands of this."

"But…" Maddie stared at the woman. "But…"

Janet leaned forwards, resting her elbows on her desk. "The case file will stay open and we'll have some people stopping by to see if they can figure out what's going on." She shrugged and sent Maddie a small smile. "If this was a bigger city, we'd have more options. But here, in Amity Park… He's yours."

Maddie looked from one boy to the other, confused and frustrated. "But…"

A knock at the door caught everyone's attention. "Janet?" the clerk said, sending both women a grin. "That man from Chicago is here to see you."

With a grin, Janet pressed her hands against her desk and pushed herself to her feet. "Well, I've got to go. We'll call you to set up some appointments, okay? I'm sure we'll get this figured out."

"But…" Maddie help up her hand as Janet brushed past her and vanished out the door. She stared at the swinging door for a moment, then back to the two boys. "But there's two of them…"

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Uploaded October 1, 2008  
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...  
Thanks for reading!


	10. Cell's Last Stand

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_I wrote this forever ago... found it as I was searching through my hard drive. I lost my jumpdrive (and, thus, all my stories) and am rather __randomly searching __for anything that I remembered to back up. Been finding drabbles I don't think I ever posted, which is kinda neat. If you're interested, my next chapter of 'Pits' is almost finished being REwritten, as I know I didn't back that up. Darn lost jumpdrive.  
_

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**Cell's Last Stand**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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Twenty years: a magic number, really. Twenty years, give or take a few months, is how long it takes to completely replace all the cells in your body. I'm sure that somewhere in his head, Vlad Masters knows this little factoid – actually, I know for sure he knows it, I found it at one point.

It doesn't really matter whether or not he knows it – _knowing_ a fact and _applying_ a fact are two separate skills. And Vlad Masters, for all of his devilry and intelligence, cannot relate that detail to his life. So he tucked it away in some back corner of his mind and today, flying hundreds of feet in the air, he is blissfully unaware of the importance of that magic number. He has no idea that his body is busily replacing the last few cells that were contaminated during the explosion twenty years and a few months earlier.

If he would have known, I wonder if he would have guessed what would happen when the last of his 'old' cells died and he was 'remade'. I wonder if he would have even wasted the time to think that something might happen. Vlad Masters doesn't stop his plans in difference to a hundred souls being snuffed out… much less a few measly cells deep inside his body.

Me? I know what's about to happen. Hell, I've been waiting for it for twenty years. The past few months, knowing that the magic number was coming, have been pure torture. Every day, I can feel Vlad's control slowly weakening. I'm well aware that only the thinnest sliver of cells still keeps Vlad in control.

Twenty years to sit and wonder and think and dream. Mostly I wonder if Vlad even knows I exist. I'm pretty sure he doesn't or, if he does know, I obviously don't even register on his radar. He took my name – or, perhaps, I took his – but he's never taken even a heartbeat to wonder if I'm here. So I stay, locked away, screaming but unable to be heard, banging my fists against solid walls until I'm bloody and broken, seeing but unable to be seen. Twenty years of silence and solitary confinement.

Sometimes, I wonder if I went insane at some point. Part of me knows that I did – no soul can survive twenty years of being locked away without going slightly crazy – but the rest of me can't decide. The only person I really have to place myself up against is Vlad… and I believe that he's certifiable. After years of watching the world, 'crazy', I've decided, is based on the actions and words of an individual; if a person acts and talks sanely, than that person is not insane. Me, I can't move or speak or do anything of the sort, so I have a tough time deciding. Maybe, after that magic number passes Vlad by, I'll be able to find out.

I wonder what will be the first thing I will do when I'm free of my prison. I've thought of millions of scenarios over the years – ranging from the stupid to the absolutely insane. I will, rather quickly, move away from all the smelly cheese. I've decided I hate cheese; whether my hatred stems from Vlad's love of cheese, I do not know. Eventually, I think that I will run for some government office. Vlad loves his stupid businesses, but I find them dull. President is more along _my_ lines of interest. Maybe I'll start by becoming Mayor.

Another cell dies, interrupting my thoughts, and I stretch a little, feeling Vlad's wavering control still holding me locked away. I circle, pacing a million eternal steps around my prison cell, waiting for the moment when the world would be mine and Vlad would be the one screaming into the unheard abyss I've been living in these deplorable decades. I wonder if I'll be able to hear him as he tumbles away or if it'll just be silence. I half-hope I can hear his shrieks, if only to know that he will suffer as I have these interminable years.

My new life awaits the death of just two small cells. I know I am grinning crazily by this point, bouncing on my toes, my eyes glowing with excitement. He doesn't seem to know I'm here, he has no clue that I'm coming.

Fear me, Vlad Masters, for I am Plasmius.

And when that last cell dies, your life will be mine.

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Uploaded October 12, 2008  
Halloween is a coming...  
Thanks for reading!


	11. Viva la Vida

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**Viva La Vida**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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"I use to rule the world," Dan whispered from his perch on top of Amity Park's clock tower. He thought there was little bit of an irony to where he was sitting – on top of Time. For so many months he'd been trapped within Time's clutches, and now he was on top of it. Unfortunately the metaphor was completely figurative since Clockwork had _let_ him go. Dan had not conquered time; he was subject to it. "Seas would rise when I gave the word."

He rather liked the song he'd heard on the radio a few hours earlier. It had struck something inside of him. The ghostly sounds of the bells ringing in the background, combined with the eerie lyrics and melody had combined to form something almost inspirational… it was almost like, if he were still a stupid teenager with delusions of being an idiotic 'hero', a _theme song_. "One minute I held the key, next the walls were closed on me."

It wasn't like he'd done anything overly _bad_. He'd only been protecting himself – what was so wrong with that? The little bratty younger version of himself had no idea what was in store in the world and yet he'd still fought so hard to keep the inevitable from happening. It was in everyone's best interest if things happened as they were supposed to. "And that was when I ruled the world…"

And now what was he doing? "Just a puppet on a lonely string, oh who would ever want to be king?"

He was supposed to _save_ the brat.

His teeth clenched painfully as he contemplated that thought. After everything he'd been through, all the battles and the wars and the death threats and the pain and the loneliness, he was going to do something _else_ that he really didn't want to do. His existence was, in truth, nothing but a pile of mud. _Nothing_ ever went right in his life… or afterlife. "Now in the morning I sleep alone, sweep the streets I used to own."

His gleaming eyes tracked a few flickers of light, noting the distinctive emerald and ruby tones. "There they are," he muttered sourly. He hadn't picked the clock tower just for the irony – although that had been a definite plus – it was also the tallest place in Amity Park. Sans using ghost powers (which would have grabbed the attention of his idiotic younger self), it gave him the best view of the impending battle.

"Shattered windows and the sound of drums," he continued softly, singing slightly off-key and being careful to throw no energy into his voice. Going off what Clockwork had shown him in the time stream, 'Danny' couldn't afford to be distracted in this fight. For some reason, _Dear_ Old Uncle Vlad was hell-bent on killing the teen this time. Drumming his clawed fingers on the clock tower's singles, Dan took a moment to wish Clockwork would have told him what had started the particular battle. "People couldn't believe what I'd become. Revolutionaries wait for my head on a silver plate…"

When Vlad flew into view, his cape singed and his normally spotless hair mussed, Dan fought down a gleeful smile. The jerk deserved all the pain he got. Vlad spun, red energy blazing into existence around him before getting channeled into two bright streams of light. His face was illuminated for just a moment, the red light casting the fury inscribed in Vlad's features into stark relief.

Having apparently dodged the attack, Danny Phantom appeared, spiraling up through the sky as a green aura coalesced around him. When they drew even with each other, Danny's eyes were glowing painfully bright. Dan, still lounging on the rooftop a few hundred feet away and completely unnoticed by the dueling pair, shook his head. It was such a waste of energy to do the glowing eyes trick. "Where is she?" Danny spat, the emerald lights dancing around him growing brighter by the moment.

"I've done nothing with your precious sister," Vlad sneered, causing Dan to roll his eyes at the obvious lie. Of _course_ Vlad had done something with… what was her name? Jasmine. Fortunately for his younger self, the girl was fine and, according to Clockwork, would have already worked herself free and was busily heading home by this point.

Green energy slashed through the air, Vlad blocking it with one of his carefully controlled ghost shields. The difference between the abilities of the two was instantly obvious, even to Dan's untrained eyes – Danny was far more powerful, but Vlad's impossibly tight control over his ghost powers gave him the advantage. Danny was flailing around with a broad sword and Vlad had a finely tuned dagger that could slit throats before anyone knew he was there. Both were highly effective, but unless Danny got in a lucky shot, Vlad would be the winner of this fight. "Give her back!" the boy yelled and sent another slash of light towards his elder opponent.

"Like that will work," Dan chuckled softly.

True to Dan's thoughts, Vlad created two clones, all three of them circling the irate teenager like caged tigers. The two clones slipped through Danny's guard and grabbed his shoulders, wrenching him backwards and down towards the ground. Danny struggled, energy pouring out of him in horribly controlled washes of power, seeming to think he could dissipate Vlad's clones with pure energy. "_Let me go!_ the boy screamed, unrestrained power leaking into his voice, shattering windows for a two block radius, and causing Dan to flinch when the sound washed over him.

Fortunately or otherwise, the scream managed to disrupt the two clones long enough for Danny to slip out of their grasp. The small figure cut between them and sliced up through the air towards the 'real' Vlad. "Bad choice," Dan muttered, reaching up to brush a hand through his simmering hair as he watched the battle. "Vlad'll see that coming from a mile away."

There was an explosion of red-green light, causing Dan to squint into the sudden supernova. Thanks to Clockwork, Dan already knew what would be there when the glow faded away, but he waited and watched anyways. It would be fun to see his younger, hot-headed, and idiotic self strung up by the heels.

This was supposed to be his cue to jump in and 'rescue' his younger self, but Dan didn't move a muscle. He was still contemplating ignoring Clockwork's orders and doing what he wanted to do despite the 'destruction of the time stream' or whatever the ghost had been jabbering about. The thought of the expression on Vlad's face if the man killed Danny, and then Dan took Danny's place, and then Vlad found 'Danny'… still alive… Dan grinned at the picture in his head, running his tongue over his fangs so that they glistened in the moonlight. The thought wasn't without merit.

But. Dan sighed and got to his feet as the light vanished, revealing his bratty younger self locked in Vlad's clutches. It seemed as though there was always a 'but' to Dan's life – in this case, should he let Danny die, Clockwork would throw him back in that stupid thermos. This was his chance to 'redeem' himself. Now, if only he'd done anything that required redeeming, Dan might have actually given some thought to Clockwork's words. "Stupid Clockwork," Dan groused as he levitated off the ground and started to fly in a leisurely spiral towards two people he would rather have nothing to do with.

"… you will listen to me," Vlad was growling into Danny's ear as Dan approached, unnoticed by both the struggling ghosts. "You've taken this one step too far…"

Dan coughed. "Excuse me," he said sourly, fighting down a grin at the looks both halfas were sending him.

Vlad's bloody eyes staring into Dan's with a look of fury, contrasting nicely with the pure terror in Danny's. "If you cherish your existence, you'll leave and never come back," the older man snapped.

His bratty younger self had stopped struggling. "Dan…" he whispered, then seemed to catch himself. Eyes narrowing, bravado trying to cover up the obvious fear, he pushed against Vlad's arms. To no avail, Dan noted happily. "How'd you get out of the Thermos?"

"Clockwork let me out," Dan replied casually, ignoring the growing ruddy glow around the elder halfa. Vlad couldn't hold a candle to the futuristic ghost – Dan had Vlad's practice and control _and_ Danny's pure ability – and Dan wasn't about to stoop to acknowledging creatures that were beneath him. "I'm supposed to save you."

"I don't need your help," the boy snarled, still struggling in vain against Vlad's grip. "For once, I agree with the fruit loop – leave and never come back."

Dan shrugged, crossing his arms across his chest. "Too bad I can't do that."

Energy suddenly exploded out of Vlad, cascading through the air and wrapping around Dan in a tangible net. For a brief moment, Dan felt the energy constrict around him, holding him trapped in the air. It was a bit of a surprise – he'd never heard of such a tactic being used before – otherwise he doubted he would have been caught by it. The 'cocoon' of energy tightened.

Dan grinned. Had he been anything less powerful, Vlad's attack would have squashed him like a bug or left him paralyzed. "What an interesting attack," he murmured, swirling a patch of energy out of the air and slicing through Vlad's attack, dissipating it easily. "I'll have to learn that one."

Vlad faltered a little when his attack failed so miserably, making Dan's grin grow to an actual smile, his fangs gleaming in the moonlight. "Who are you?" Vlad demanded.

"Release the brat," Dan ordered.

The vampiric ghost's eyes glanced down at the still struggling teenager, then up into Dan's face before falling down to center on Dan's chest. Dan followed his gaze, studying the silver symbol still etched into his shirt. "Clockwork," Vlad said softly, his red eyes flickering back to Dan's face. "How old are you, Danny?"

Arching an eyebrow, Dan raised _this_ version of Vlad a few notches on his list of enemies. Had the old hermit seriously figured it out? "Twenty-five. And it's Dan."

"Interesting," Vlad murmured, suddenly releasing his hold on Danny. The teenager fell a few dozen feet before he caught himself, hanging below the fight, obviously trying to figure out what to do next. "And now that you're here, what do you plan on doing?"

Dan studied Vlad's expressions carefully – what was the geezer up to? "Same-old," Dan finally said with a shrug.

"Which is?"

"I killed you," Dan lied calmly, watching Vlad's face get a little paler. He never _had_ gotten around to killing what remained of Vlad Masters in his time line, but he could have killed the annoyance without any sort of thought and that was the point. "I killed my weak human half. I destroyed all of Amity Park and most of the Ghost Zone." His eyes were hard. "I was _king_, that's what I was."

Below them, Danny was tensing, sending uncontrolled shocks of power through the air. "You're not going to destroy Amity Park while I'm here," the boy snapped, full of teenaged immortality.

"Like you could stop me," Dan sneered.

"I did before." Danny glared up at him, green eyes glowing with raw energy.

Dan's lip curled. "A lucky shot. Believe me when I say it wouldn't happen again."

"Rather than destroy Amity Park," Vlad said, "would you be open to discussing other options?"

"I'm not going to be your pawn," Dan snarled back instantly, narrowed eyes gazing straight into Vlad's.

Black-gloved hands came up in a 'peace' gesture. "Not a pawn, Dan. A _partner_."

"You _can't_," Danny started to complain, but Dan pointed a casual hand towards his younger self and released a carefully control blast of spectral energy. The teenager raised a shield, but between wearing himself out with Vlad earlier and Dan's pure amount of power, the simple stream of energy smashing through his shield, slammed into him like a sledgehammer, and sent him spiraling to the ground.

Dan didn't spare him another glance. The boy would have survived the blow but would definitely be out of the picture of awhile. While 'partner' was a long way from what he'd had before, it was a good start. No doubt he could take care of Vlad whenever the old man got on his nerves and, in the mean time, would be a convenient shield from Clockwork's machinations. "I'm listening."

And somewhere in the back of his mind, the song from the radio was still playing. "Listen as the crowd would sing; 'Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!'"

* * *

Uploaded October 17, 2008  
_Liva La Vida_'s song, lyrics, and title are (c) Cold Play.  
Thanks for reading!


	12. Trapped

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**Trapped**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

She clenched her teeth painfully, pushing the throttle of jetpack far beyond its programmed limit. The next-generation ionic engine whined pitifully, guttering and sputtering every few moments to protest the drain on its batteries. "Don't die on me," she whispered hopefully, edging back on the speed slightly.

A sparkling bolt of emerald energy fizzled through the air, achingly close to her skin, and she threw herself into a quick spiral as more beams of light raced through where she'd been split-seconds earlier. The small shield on her belt had long since run out of power; she was down to avoiding the attacks with nothing but her agility and reflexes. Glancing quickly over her shoulder, she noted how close her pursuers had edged, then pushed her throttle a little higher. She couldn't be caught.

Eerily floating doors zipped past her, dotting the ever-green landscape. A floating island drifted into her path but she didn't hesitate or change her track. Diving straight through the solid ground, she grimaced as her molecules were forced out of phase, the tingling, aching feeling completely unwelcome. But she knew that her attackers would be forced to go around the island, so she lived with it for the few moments that she was buried in the ground in order to gain a bit of distance on them.

When she blazed into the clear, her aqua eyes were already scanning for trouble. Her helmet picked up on the ectosignatures of the ghosts chasing her, highlighting them and making the spirits easier to spot. There, and over there, and over there, and… She swore softly and threw herself into a dive. She was completely surrounded.

"Human!" one of the ghosts – a level eight, her goggles informed her – boomed out with a voice that shook the air. "You are under arrest."

A slight narrowing of her eyes was the only response she gave. Normally, she mere level eight would be beneath her notice; he could be kept away with a simple shield and sent running with even the old-fashioned weaponry. The hundred-something ghosts he had managed to finagle into something like an army, however, were a concern. When she made it back to the real world to report in on this, they'd have to send in a team to break them up.

Pulling sharply out of her dive, she arrowed for a small opening in the sphere of ghosts. "By order of the GiW, you are ordered to disperse immediately," she said, her helmet amplifying her voice so that all of the ghosts could hear her. She didn't think it would accomplish anything. She'd already tried to order them to leave her alone – to absolutely no effect.

"You've nowhere to run," the white-garbed warden laughed over the chorus of chuckles from the ghosts. A few poorly-aimed beams of energy filled the hole she'd been aimed for, forcing her to swerve and head in a different direction. "We're done listening to your vaunted human 'government'. We are _ghosts _and we aren't going to listen to you anymore!" His voice echoed through the empty space. "Surrender!"

Completely ignoring the cheers and screams of the ghosts, she flicked looks left and right, running through her options in her mind. Running was blocked off. Attacking that number of ghosts was suicide. A glance at the console on her wrist told her that the other humans patrolling the Ghost Zone were too far away to be of any help. Letting out a frustrated breath of air, she painfully acknowledged that she'd been outmaneuvered.

There was still an option left, however, other than surrender. Curling to her left and slightly up, she aimed for one of the plain-looking black doors that dotted the area. One-on-one with a ghost had to be better than this. She gunned the throttle on her jetpack one last time, hearing the engine scream as a few of its parts began to melt. Defeat the ghost, hide in its lair until the others got bored, and then head home to report in.

"Get her!" The warden suddenly screamed, seeming to have realized her plan. The circling ghosts dove for her as she closed in on the door. Inside the lair she'd be safe.

Her fingers curled around the cool doorknob and a second of fear flittered through her as she wondered if the door would be locked. She twisted the handle and threw open the door, collapsing into the lair, her jetpack coughing loudly and cutting out. Stumbling a little on the floor, she twirled around and slammed the door closed behind her. "I made it," she whispered, breathing heavily.

"Maddie Fenton." The voice was soft and those two words were full of hate.

Flipping around, her gun came up to point at the ghost's chest. Her helmet instantly locked on to the ghost's ectosignature, the helmet displaying his stats: level fourteen, class 'B' danger. Searing emerald eyes, starlight white hair, looking to be about twenty years old. Her heart thumped painfully as she stared into the achingly familiar eyes.

"Phantom."

* * *

"Been awhile," the ghost sneered softly. "Ten years, right?"

Maddie narrowed her eyes and glared even though the ghost couldn't see her through her helmet. She flipped on the speakers so he would be able to hear her, her gun never wavering an inch. "Seventeen people murdered in cold blood, right?" she shot back.

A look that might have been pain flickered through his glowing eyes before they hardened in anger. "What do you want?"

"Nothing," she snapped.

"Then leave," he muttered, setting the cup he'd been holding down on a table and turning his back on her, seeming to not care about the gun pointed towards him. "Haven't I suffered enough for you?"

For a moment, Maddie hesitated and thought about actually going back out through the door. None of her weapons were able to handle a level fourteen ghost like Phantom – she probably had a better chance of survival with the warden's goons. "I… can't."

A glance over a shoulder and an arched eyebrow met her statement.

Fingers clenched tightly around her gun's grip, the sight carefully pointed at the ghost's heart, she debated what to do. To leave or to stay. Gritting her teeth, she decided to see how long she could keep Phantom occupied. The second the ghost started to get angry, she'd have to try her luck outside. "I was chased in here," she admitted, trying to buy some time.

"Do I care?" the ghost breathed, shaking his head and wandering into a different room of the lair.

"Probably not," she whispered after she flicked off the external speakers, alone for a few minutes. The ghost, before he'd been banished from the human world, had been ridiculously callous and self-centered. He hadn't even seemed to care that he'd murdered over a dozen people.

But, she thought as she gazed around the lair, that Phantom's home was different from what she expected. Most ghosts lairs centered around their obsessions – filled with boxes or televisions or whatever the ghost was obsessed over. Phantom's... seemed almost like a human apartment. There was a comfortable-looking couch, a large television, and even a junk-covered coffee table. Through the door Phantom had vanished through, she could see what looked like a small kitchen. Flickering her eyes over the natural-colored paint and the almost-normal decorations, Maddie found herself hard-pressed to see this as the lair belonging to a murderer. She didn't know what she'd been expecting – blood-covered walls or something – but not this normalcy.

Movement caught her eye and she swung up her gun to point at the ghost as he walked back into the room. "Still here?" he asked darkly.

"I can't leave," she repeated, flipping her speakers back on.

The ghost studied her for a long moment before sauntering over to the couch and setting on the back rest, legs crossed, apparently unconcerned by the supernatural balancing act or her primed weapon. "So, if you're not going to leave me alone," he said slowly, "what do I owe this unwelcome blast from the past?"

Swallowing heavily, she stared into his glowing green eyes. Phantom was incredibly powerful and obviously didn't want her to be here. The ghost could kill her without a second thought and there wouldn't be much she could do about it.

"Come on," Phantom said with a roll of his eyes, "you're in my home, no doubt expecting to get to stay. You can at least tell me why you're here."

"In accordance with…" she started, but Phantom cut her off with a wave of his hand.

"Yes, yes, yes, we all know all about the new 'human' laws. Your world's not big enough so you've come here to take over ours, build a causeway through our world, and move the ghosts to 'safe havens'." His fingers formed air quotes as a sarcastic note entered his voice. "Not enough to ban us from one world, you're going to kick us out of our own as well."

Maddie bristled a little at the accusation. That wasn't true. Transportation via the Ghost Zone was incredibly fast compared to traditional human means and all they wanted was a small, safe corridor. The Ghost Zone was infinite; surely the ghosts could move a few hundred feet to either side. "That's not…"

Again, Phantom cut her off. "I don't want to debate human superiority," the ghost muttered. "I really don't care either way. What I want to know is why you're not out mapping and enforcing laws and instead you're in _here_ bothering _me_."

"I was chased," she admitted after a moment. "Picking your door was an accident – it was the first one I saw."

"There's no such thing as accidents," Phantom whispered, tipping his head to the side and brushing some of his uncut hair out of his eyes. "Who was chasing you?"

"Walker."

Oddly, a grin jumped onto his face and Phantom snorted out a laugh. "Had your shoes tied wrong?"

She shook her head, missing the joke. Her gun was still pointed at the ghost, ready to fire; she couldn't allow herself to fall into any sort of complacency. "Walker and about a hundred of his friends are disagreeing with the transportation corridor."

Phantom arched an eyebrow. "Ah. I wondered when that would happen."

"They'll kill me if I leave."

"So what was your illustrious plan when you dove in here?" Phantom asked. "Were you going to kill me and steal my lair?"

Maddie gazed down the barrel of her gun, unable to answer. That _had_ been her plan, but there was no way would be able to hurt such a powerful spirit. And the slow smile spreading across Phantom's face showed that the ghost knew it too.

"I hate you," the ghost stated simply, his sour tone completely at odds with the smile on his face. "You falsely accused me of killed seventeen people before banishing me to this Hell-hole existence without even giving me a chance to explain. You stole my life."

"You killed my children," she whispered back. "I will never forgive you for that."

A long moment of silence passed between the ghost and the hunter. "As long as we understand each other," Phantom said softly. Turning around, his dropped to sit on the couch and flipped on the TV, leaving Maddie to stare at the ghost's back and wonder what was going to happen next.

* * *

Uploaded October 19, 2008  
It's one of those 'blah' kind of stories... I'm not a fan of it.  
Thanks for reading!


	13. First Date

* * *

_Two NovaShots uploaded today_.

* * *

**First Date**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

Danny clicked tiredly through his email, pausing for a moment on one sent from Paulina. When the attachment popped up on his screen, Danny grinned a little and scanned through the headlines of the 'Paulina E-Zine', stopping to admire the photographs of one of the hottest girl in school on the way.

Sam, when she had first found out that Danny had signed up for the email newsletter, had almost growled. She'd yelled at him for nearly ten minutes about only signing up for it so that, so she claimed anyways, he'd get pictures of Paulina sent to his inbox once a week to drool over. Danny had just listened and nodded and apologized through it all.

Almost a month later, he still hadn't gotten around to telling her the _real_ reason he'd signed up for Paulina's E-Zine. The truth was that it was the easiest way to keep track of Paulina's various 'marry Danny Phantom' schemes. Lately they'd been growing more and more ludicrous… and one a few weeks ago had almost worked. It had been a little creepy how close Paulina had gotten before he'd managed to get away.

Printing out the email – as a reminder to avoid the Nasty Burger on Tuesday, not to gawk at the pictures – he smiled. Telling Sam the real reason he was still reading Paulina's E-Zine probably wouldn't take more than a few breaths and she would probably even praise him for planning and thinking ahead. But he wasn't going to tell her. Tomorrow, when he showed her the E-Zine, she'd go off on another one of her tirades about the shallow witch Paulina, jealousy simmering under her Gothic exterior.

His smile grew into a soft chuckle as he imaged Sam's green-eyed mutterings. Not that he'd admit it to anyone – he was barely willing to admit it to himself – but watching Sam get jealous because she thought he was looking at another girl was… something. It made his stomach twist in a pleasant way and he always had to fight down a grin at the thought.

He wasn't entirely sure what the feeling was, but it was definitely something. And for now, _something_ was good enough for him. Turning off just computer, he yawned and crawled into bed.

* * *

"You realize you're eating over-processed, chemical-laden _torture_ subjects… right?"

Danny chuckled a little as Sam leaned over her tray to glare at Tucker. The inevitable meat vs. vegetables argument was a given the moment Tucker had chosen to take three helpings of the mystery meatloaf.

"You don't know that for sure," Tucker said happily, grabbing a bottle of ketchup and creating his own impression of a murder scene on his tray. "This is _mystery_ meatloaf. For all we know, we could be eating humanely euthanized road kill."

Violet eyes blinked, disgust flitting across Sam's features. "And you're _still_ going to eat it!?"

"You bet," Tucker grinned, stabbing a huge chunk with his plastic spork. "Have you tasted this? _Heaven_." He popped the bite into his mouth and made a show of chewing it slowly, savoring the taste.

Sam shuddered. "At least close your mouth. I don't want to see it while it's being eaten."

"Do I detect a hint of porcupine? Maybe a few dashes of squirrel?" Tucker closed his eyes, swallowed, then licked his lips. "Mr. Fenton, what do you think? I think there's a tad too much raccoon."

Danny rolled his eyes, taking a bite of his own meatloaf. "I think it's cold," he said after a moment.

"That's because you haven't correctly bribed the lunch lady," Tucker said with a grin. "You're still receiving the inferior slices."

Sam snorted. "They're all 'inferior'. Have either of you ever seen a meat processing plant?"

"No, I haven't," Danny admitted before glancing back at Tucker. "You're _bribing_ the lunch lady? How?"

Popping another bite into his mouth, Tucker said, "U-shin da ol uh-ker char."

Sam sighed loudly, pushing her half-eaten salad away. "Why is it so hard?" she lamented softly. "Chew, swallow, _then_ talk? Even my Venus Fly Trap has figured it out. Now I can't eat anymore."

"Dude," Danny said with a grin, "I agree with Sam this time. Don't need to see the reprocessed mystery meat. I'm having a tough enough time eating it once."

Swallowing, Tucker laughed. "You two are _weak_, I tell you. You wouldn't last two minutes at a Foley Family Dinner."

"Whatever." Danny mixed his potatoes around for a moment. "So how are you bribing the lunch lady? I didn't catch it around all the food."

"I'm using the ol' Tucker charm," he said proudly, puffing out his chest a little. "Tucker Foley – that's T.F. as in-"

"_Daa-nny!"_

The distinct sound of a spork snapping in half caught Danny's attention before he glanced up to see who'd called his name. It wasn't hard to figure out who it was – the girly voice, pitched to the perfect level to inspire protective feelings in any male within hearing distance, could only be one person. Danny's eyes drifted over to Sam, who was suddenly tense and glaring down at the table, her broken spork unnoticed in her hand. "Sam, you okay?" Danny asked softly.

Before she could answer, Paulina Sanchez draped herself into the seat next to them. "Hey Danny! Hello… people that are beneath my notice."

"Witch," Sam muttered darkly.

"Hey Paulina!" Tucker said brightly, then let out a sharp breath when Sam elbowed him in the ribs. "Hey, that's as close as she's ever come to acknowledging me," he complained softly. "Lay off."

"What'cha want?" Danny asked, his gaze drifting from Sam to Paulina, before glancing back at Sam.

Paulina smiled and leaned closer, shrugging her shoulders a little and flouncing her hair in a carefully choreographed move. "I need a favor, Danny. On Tuesday…"

"I know," Danny cut in. "I read your Zine last night."

Paulina brightened. "You did? Good, that will cut out some of the time I have to sit at the loser's table. I need Phantom to be at the Nasty Burger on Tuesday after school… and since he follows you around, I need you to be there too."

Danny blinked, startled. It never failed to amaze him that the _one_ person in Amity Park who'd managed to connect his two halves was Paulina Sanchez. She didn't have it _right_, but she was a lot closer than anyone else. That, combined with her recent schemes to trap his ghost half, hinted that she was a whole lot smarter than she appeared. "Uh…" he hesitated. The _last_ place he wanted to be, human _or _ghost, was the Nasty Burger on Tuesday. "I…"

"You have someplace better to be?" Paulina asked, pouting and fluttering her eyelashes.

Glancing over at Tucker for help, he mentally rolled his eyes when he saw Tucker doing nothing but staring at Paulina. His gaze traveled on to Sam, who was glaring at Paulina like she could make the more popular girl burst into flames, simmering in pure jealousy. Danny felt his stomach give a little flip, a grin slipping onto his face at how protective his best friend was. "I'm busy," he heard himself saying as he watched Sam, not really in control of his mouth. "Got a date."

"On a Tuesday?" Paulina sounded incredulous. "_You?_ With who?"

"Sam."

The world came to a total stop. Sam's eyes jerked from Paulina's to his and Tucker almost fell out of his chair in surprise. For a few eternal moments, Danny just stared into Sam's amethyst eyes, swallowing heavily, his heart beating loudly in his ears.

"Seriously?" Paulina asked, her voice sounding distant and unreal to Danny.

Getting the next two words out ranked as the hardest thing he'd ever done. Harder than locking away Pariah Dark. Harder than defeating Vlad for the umpteenth time. Harder than defeating his own future. The words seemed to catch in his mouth and fight to stay inside. "Right, Sam?"

Even as the words made it out into the air, Danny's mind hung on a precipice, waiting for her answer. It was just a fake-out date to get him out of trouble – nothing that was that big of a deal – but for some reason, he was really worried about what she'd say.

For some reason, he _really_ wanted her to say 'yes' – and mean it.

"Yeah," Sam finally agreed, never looking away from Danny, a weird smile growing on her face. "Tuesday. Date."

The world rearranged itself for Danny in an instant, but he couldn't look away from the girl he'd just – he couldn't believe it – he'd just asked out on a date. A real date. Not a fake-out date, but a real one. The smile that was on her face was making the whole world seem to glow. It was this pleased, not-at-all-jealous, the-world's-working-perfectly, I love you kind of smile.

_I love you…_

Danny felt the world drop out from under his feet as those words drifted into his mind. They rang through him like a bell and he couldn't tear his eyes away from Sam.

Paulina sighed, annoyed, shattering Danny's frozen little world. "But I need Phantom to be there!"

Danny glanced over at the popular girl with a shrug. "It's not like I'm Phantom's manager. I can't guarantee he'd be there anyways." Something weird about his hand made him look down. The spork he had clasped in his hand was broken. His grin grew a little, chuckling as he wondered when he'd done that.

"But…" Paulina pouted.

"Why don't you go ask Valerie? She's got an 'in' on Phantom." Danny smiled at Paulina. "Besides, I'm sure she'd love to help you try to get him in one spot."

The Hispanic girl tapped her fingers on the table. "She hates Phantom," Paulina muttered. "But maybe…" A smile drifted onto the girl's lips that made a small shiver run down Danny's spine. Perhaps helping to team up the quickly-getting-better ghost hunter and the obviously-smarter-than-she-seemed Paulina hadn't been the greatest idea on the planet. "Thanks, Danny!" She bounced to her feet. "Bye! And goodbye…" she hesitated, "other people."

Paulina sauntered away, leaving the trio to sit in silence for a moment. Danny fiddled with his broken spork for a moment, finally deciding that he wasn't really all that hungry anyways. He looked up at Sam, who was still staring at him with at pretty smile on her face. "So… Tuesday?"

"Tuesday," she whispered dazedly, then blinked and seemed to shake herself out of whatever world she'd been locked into, her smile vanishing to be replaced by a pensive frown. "Right. Fake-out date."

Tucker let out a huge breath. "Oh yeah," he chuckled. "I forgot about those. I was, for a second, thinking that the world had ended. You two _actually_ admitting your feelings for each other?" He snorted, then returned to his meatloaf.

Danny shrugged, pushing his tray a bit away from him so he could rest his elbows on the table. He glanced at Sam out of the corner of his eye, noting how _off_ she looked. It looked, at least for a moment, like she was about to cry. Danny felt something inside of him crumble as he watched her fiddle with her own broken spork.

"I was thinking movie," Danny said suddenly, his stomach tense. She'd already agreed to the date – in a way. And even though it looked like she had really wanted to go, Danny didn't know for sure. This was going out on a limb, stretching their friendship, travelling someplace new… His insides lurched and he wondered if he was going to throw up or, in his case, turn intangible and fall through the floor, but he took a deep breath and kept going. "And there's that new vegan place that just opened – maybe we could get something to eat too."

The sound of the third and final spork of the group snapping in half as Tucker actually _did_ fall out of his chair was the only thing Danny heard.

The only thing he saw was the beautiful, shy smile that suddenly bloomed on Sam's face.

The smile made everything worth it.

* * *

Uploaded October 19, 2008  
What's with me and sporks in gooey stories?  
Thanks for reading!


	14. Book of the Dead

* * *

_I know this isn't new and it isn't what I should be doing, but it was biting me and wouldn't let go_. _Unedited_.

* * *

**Book of the Dead**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

And so it was that the great Danny Phantom died. His heart had stilled, his brain had stopped, and his spirit had slipped on to whatever-it-is that comes after this life.

"Danny…" Sam whispered, clutching at her best friend's cold hand. Eighteen years old was too young, in her mind, to be gone. A hero, a savior of the whole world, a young man with the universe on a plate… and he was gone. "Come back."

He wouldn't come back. There was a choice to be made, when one died: to stay or to go. Danny would never choose to stay – he knew exactly what kind of existence would wait for him on this side of the line. His unfocused, blank blue eyes told the tale all too well. Danny was dead… for good.

Around the two best friends, the high-tech laboratory whirred and buzzed, blinked and scanned. One piece of technology in particular flickered and computed and waited to be called on. Sam had already flipped the switch, turning it on from its lifeless state. If only life were so easy to restart, with just a flip of a switch.

But that had been the idea behind this silvery gadget. A twenty-first century Book of the Dead: a way to bring the dead back to life. The creators never planned on it ever being used, but they had built it anyways, on the glimmer of a wonder if it would even possible _to_ build such a thing.

Unfortunately, it was.

"Danny," she breathed, closing his stormy eyes, then reached over and grabbed two suction cups that were sitting on top of the machine. One was placed firmly on each temple, small needles digging through the skin, one sharp probe drilling through skull and planting itself firmly among the inactive brain tissues. Small trickles of blood raced down his cold skin.

Sam wiped at a tear that was rolling down her cheek as she turned to the machine, racing through the programs. "You can't leave me like this." The pointer hovering over the last icon, she looked down at her best friend, took a deep breath, and clicked the mouse.

The machine screamed into existence with a sound that rivaled a mob of banshees. Sam dropped to her knees, hands clamped over her ears and eyes squeezed shut, blood trickling from her broken eardrums. Energy was yanked off the power grid in a fantastic display of sparks, light bulbs flashing brilliantly before exploding in unheard tinkles of glass shards. The machine also stole energy straight from the ghost portal – pulling unbridled power from the ghost zone itself.

No ordinary machine could possibly hope to bring the dead back to life. Once a soul has chosen to move on, that is all there is to it. No amount of praying or begging or electrical shocks or modern human technology could drag a soul back from where it had gone. But this was no ordinary machine. Powered by endless streams of supernatural energy, _this_ machine had the ability to sink its teeth into a soul, no matter how far it had fled.

All over the ghost zone, spirits screamed in agony as their energy was ripped from them, funneling through the green abyss of their world in a blazing torrent of power. Shrieks and wails abruptly cut off as ghosts lost the ability to stay cohesive, their souls being thrown lose from their created 'bodies' and set drifting. The ghost's forms were disintegrated, turned into pure energy, and used to power the machine hooked up to the infamous Danny Phantom.

Danny's body was writhing and convulsing on the table, the dying muscles being forced into movement by the intense electrical shocks. His heart was prodded into a reluctant beat, cool blood being sent through arteries and veins. His mouth opened reflexively, a breath being drawn in, and oxygen started to flow. An emerald aura sprang into existence around the body like a wild fire, burning and twisting as supernatural power was pushed into the dead form.

A flash of light more brilliant than a supernova signaled the end. The machine fizzled in a cloud of sparks of smoke, the portal to the ghost zone stopping its tempest thrashing and setting back down. Everything went totally silent in the lab now lit only by the swirling energy of the ghost portal.

Sam opened her eyes slowly, looking quickly at the machine, then at her friend. Danny's body had fallen still, his unfocused eyes open again, his chest moving slowly as he continued to breathe in and out. "Danny?" she whispered, pushing herself to her feet and swiping at the blood that had oozed down her face. She swayed, suddenly dizzy, grabbing the edge of the bed.

There was no answer from the comatose body lying on the hard table. "Danny, please," she murmured, reaching forwards and running a finger over the young man's face. "I – _we – _need you to stay." Unsteadily, her fingers shaking, she pulled the probes out of Danny's temples. Blood flowed in crimson rivers, the color tinged an odd purple in the supernatural light.

Nothing. The eyes were still blank and unseeing, his body soulless and empty.

"It didn't work," Sam whispered, dropping to her knees and staring at her best friend. Tears cascaded unchecked from her amethyst eyes as she realized she'd brought nothing more than a dead body to life. "Why didn't it work? Danny… Danny come back," she cried. Her hands still gripping the edge of the table in a death grip, she bowed her head, pressing her forehead against the backs of her hands, and sobbed. Her friend, her hero, the love of her life…

…blinked. Slowly, achingly slowly, Danny's cloudy eyes cleared. Each blink of his eyes brought with them more life until he rolled his head slowly to the side. Confusion was evident on his face as he tried to figure out what had happened. "Sam?" he rasped when he saw the familiar hair and scrunchie.

Sam's head shot up, her wide eyes staring into her best friend's. "Danny," she breathed, awed. Her heart felt like it was going to explode, her body feeling like it could fly. _He's alive!_

"Sam, what did you do?" Danny whispered. He moved little by little, his body aching horribly, until he could stare at his hand in disbelief.

"I brought you back to life, Danny. You're back."

When he shook his head, Sam got to her feet, grabbing his hand and holding it tightly. "No," he argued weakly.

"Yes. Yes, I did. I saved you."

"No, no…" he mumbled, shaking his head pitifully. "I made my choice, Sam. I _chose_."

She licked her lips, baffled by what Danny was saying. She squeezed his hand reassuringly. "You're alive, Danny. It'll be okay."

Danny let out a tortured sob and yanked his hand out of Sam's grasp, curling up on the table. "No, no, no, no," he whispered over and over.

Sam could do nothing but stand there, gazing down at the body of her best friend. "Danny?" When she reached forwards to touch his shoulder, the young man flinched away from her, nearly falling off the table in the process. "Danny, what's wrong?"

He didn't answer – he _couldn't_, not really. There was no way of putting into words what he was feeling, what he _knew_ deep down in his soul.

There was no life in him; he was dead. His body had been brought back to 'life', his cells and DNA working together to keep his body existing and happy, and his soul had been dragged back from the afterlife and had been superglued back where it had been. But he was not alive.

He already knew his fate – it was written in front of him in giant glowing letters. The machine that his parents had built on a whim had tied his soul irrevocably to his body. There would be no loosening of the bond that had been created. Even if his body died, his soul would still continue to be stuck inside of it.

There would be no afterlife, no moving on. There could be no life – not anymore. He was caught in between with no way out.

There was a reason such machines were not meant to be built. The souls that move on were never meant to return to the living world; such is a place designed for the living and the dead that chose to stay. This was the first machine to transcend that barrier, his was the first soul to be dragged back to life against its will.

Sam stared down at her sobbing friend, confused and unable to understand what it was that she had done wrong. He was alive, wasn't he? Wasn't that better than being dead?

But Danny Phantom, locked away in a place between life and death, was trapped.

* * *

Uploaded November 21, 2008  
Ye-up. For those of you keeping track on NaNo, I've barely hit 8,000 words. Stupid pneumonia.  
Oh, and Happy 50th Birthday to my mom. :)  
Thanks for reading!


	15. Dripping

* * *

_Um... I don't know about this one. /tips head to the side/ It kind of goes nowhere and does nothing and explains... not much. Supposed to be longer, but will not be continued. So here you go.  
_

* * *

**Dripping**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

_Plunk_.

_Plunk._

_Plunk._

The steady sound of the liquid dripping onto the ground next to me was driving me insane.

_Plunk._

_Plunk._

When it's this totally quiet, the simple sound of a drop of liquid hitting a puddle shimmies straight into your mind, erasing all of your thoughts, and making it impossible to concentrate on something for any length of time.

_Plunk_.

Especially given the liquid in question. I couldn't see it – he'd taken the lights away – but that didn't change the fact that I _knew_ what it was.

I can see the gears in your mind twirling. _Blood_, you're thinking, and probably with good reason being the author of this story and such things as that. You're probably thinking this is another of those 'Danny goes insane' stories and that I'm trapped in a cell, waiting for him to return. You'd actually be wrong on both accounts. Danny's perfectly sane – at least the last time I saw him anyways… and there's always that little bit of doubt that creeps into a girl's mind when speaking about guys and sanity in the same sentence.

The liquid was, in fact, _chocolate_. You can see why it was making it so hard to concentrate. There, somewhere in the dark, was a _puddle_ of liquid chocolate.

I focused for a moment, trying to see if I could phase through the chains holding my wrists to the walls. Being a human in the Ghost Zone had its benefits – one being the arcane ability to pass through seemingly solid objects. You almost get used to it after awhile and get to expect to fall through things; after a week in the Ghost Zone, doors become increasingly hard to operate. This particular time, though, it was a no-go. The chains were made of something I couldn't get through.

"This stinks," I hissed, kicking out with my foot into the darkness. I was kind of hoping for a more powerful word, but none were coming to me. Being unable to see my own hands in front of my face was annoying as Hell. And _come on_ – what was with bad guys and locking girls in dark rooms? Is it some kind of male fetish?

_Plunk._

And the dripping chocolate was just an added level of torture.

"I'm going to _kill_ that ghost," I snarled to myself, yanking my arms painfully. The chains, as probably could have been expected, didn't break under the onslaught, however my wrists screamed as the cuffs dug into my skin. "And then I'm going to lock him in a Fenton Thermos and drop-kick him into the Mariana Trench to rot for a million years."

"Bad plan," came a voice from the blackness.

I rolled my eyes. "And why is that, Oh Great Ghostly One?" The words came out dripping with more sarcasm than I'd originally meant. I even managed to convey the implicit capital letters in my voice.

Danny chuckled, the sound echoing oddly in the almost empty room even though Danny was currently the second most human thing within a several mile radius. "According to Tucker, the Fenton Thermos would crack under the pressure and the ghost would get out."

"How do you know that?"

"Threatened it to Vlad once and Tucker took it a step too far. He actually did the math." There was a pause and I could picture Danny shuddering at the thought of his least-favorite subject. "Apparently volcanoes are out as well."

I wrinkled my nose and sat back against the wall. "Antartica?"

"With global warming? Get real." Chains clinked in the darkness for a moment. "It's kind of a moot point either way; the Thermos can only hold ghosts when it's charged. No matter where you toss it or bury it, they'll get out after a decade or so."

_Plunk._

Damn it. "Fine," I sighed, "I'll just have to come up with some other form of evil torture for future use."

"Sadistic much, Val?"

"Always, Danny." I closed my eyes, tried to ignore the scent of dripping chocolate in the air, and tried to remember how in _Hamlet's _name I'd gotten in here.

And if you _ever_ tell _anyone_ I just used a play as an adjective, I _will_ track you down and destroy you. And then suck your ghost into a Fenton Thermos for the decade or so it will (apparently) take the charge to dissipate. Believe me. I _am_ a ninth-degree black belt in two forms of martial arts.

_Plunk_.

And _why chocolate?_

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Uploaded December 14, 2008  
Exactly one month until my birthday!! YAY!  
Thanks for reading!


	16. Brothers

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_Need to go shopping, so posting. 'Nother NaNo drabble that I put off until now. Not entirely sure... it was originally supposed to be a reversal story - Skulker a human and Danny a ghost - but it kind of fell apart and this came out. The title maybe will give you a hint of where this might go.  
_

* * *

**Brothers**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his ragged coat as he leaned against the wall of the alley, a grin on his face that made his eyes glitter, even in the dark shadows. His stomach was rumbling – it was time to eat – and he knew just where to go.

Without much thought as to the moral ethics of what he was about to do, the teenager turned himself invisible, walked across the sunset streets, and slipped straight through a solid wall, not bothering with the door only a few feet away. He had tried, at first, to pay for his food, but that had never gone anywhere. Not only was he too young to be legally employed, whatever odd jobs he did manage to find usually ended up not paying enough to be worth the effort or his 'boss' disappeared without paying at all. His small stash of money was better off used for things harder to come by than food.

He tried not to steal too often, however sometimes it was just impossible to get around. Every now and then he'd be out of money, the soup kitchens would be closed, there wouldn't be a shelter in town, the restaurants would be empty, and the pickings wouldn't be enough to keep a mouse alive. Today, in this town, stealing wouldn't be an issue. Thanks to the _Lion's Den, _he had more than enough to keep himself satisfied.

The small restaurant was one of his favorites. It was one of those places that focused more on quantity than quality – the plates were piled high with enough food to feed a pride of starving lions, much less one human being. After taking a moment to warm up his hands and study his surroundings, he walked over to the desk and grabbed one of the take-out boxes, remembering to twist it invisible before carrying it around the busy restaurant. He'd already done _that_ once and had been chased out of town by some well-meaning but completely insane ghost hunters… he wasn't planning on doing it again.

Then he just had to wait. Crossing his legs, he floated, unseen, in one of the corners of the large room, smelling the mingling aromas of overcooked hamburgers and greasy fries. His green eyes flittered over the humans before fixing on one likely suspect. A slim young woman, probably on a date if her dress and makeup were any indication, was staring in wide-eyed amazement at the pile of food that had just been dropped in front of her. She'd only eat a quarter of it – perhaps maybe a third – if he was right. And he usually was.

He kept an eye on the other patrons, but watched, amused, as she picked at her food and tried to engage her date in conversation. Her date was having nothing of the sort, too obviously fixated on eating and on the football game being displayed on the television not too far from their table. She was getting visibly frustrated, flipping her hair over her shoulders and trying desperately to get his attention.

His invisible grin grew as she finally sat back in her chair and crossed her arms, silently glaring at her date. This was better than what little TV he was able to watch. He loved to watch the interactions of the humans around him as they went about their lives, content in their knowledge that there were no such _real _things as ghosts or, for that matter, ghost-human creatures like himself. There wasn't really any sadness in his watching or any desire to be human again; he had long since given up on ever being normal. But, for reasons he didn't really understand, the human race fascinated him.

The young woman seemed to be finished eating, the vast majority of her food still untouched on her plane, but he still waited. This was the tricky part. Sometimes the waiter or waitress would clean up the plate before the people left – that was unlikely in this place, judging by the tables full of dirty plates – or the person would ask for a take-home box. Either way, he'd be out of his meal and would have to wait for something else.

In this case, when the young woman's date finally managed to tear his eyes off the game long enough to be confused by his date's expression and the demand to go home, neither of them remembered to ask for a box for their leftovers. The man grabbed the check and followed his date, who was still giving him the cold shoulder, away from the table, leaving her plate of food behind.

In a flash, he dropped from his place floating in the corner and paced up to the table, turning her plate invisible for the few moments it would take to dump her food into his box. It would be more than enough for his supper and probably his breakfast the next morning. Leaving the plate on the table, he closed his box and took to the air, headed towards his spot.

* * *

Danny Phantom was normally a transient creature. In his four years of existence, he'd traversed the United States from sea to shining sea, migrating northward to evade the blazing heat of summer and racing southward to avoid the bitter winter cold. He had been spotted and photographed hundreds of times all over the continent and had a following that rivaled Big Foot and the Roswell Aliens. Even better, he figured, because he was actually _real_.

But, under a strange set of circumstances, he'd found himself staying in this town longer than he usually did. Ghost hunters, paranormal experts, fanatics, weirdoes, and the occasional dark occultist usually tracked him down if he stayed in one spot longer than a few weeks. People would spot him, pictures would circulate, and throngs of people would descend like he was some tornado being plagued by storm chasers. This town, Drafus Falls, had managed to completely ignore him. Nearly two months after first arriving, he was still here, still unnoticed, and now considered himself to be a regular patron of the _Lion's Den_ establishment.

He sat on one of the lower branches of the large oak tree, letting himself fall back into the visible realm before opening his box of food and digging out the massive hamburger. This was his _spot_. He normally took the time, his first night in a town, to find a place where he could sleep and live in relative peace during his stay. It wasn't a home or a camp or anything of the sort, so he never bothered to try to call it that. It was simply a _spot_.

Eating his burger, watching the sun set the rest of the way and the stars shine into life overhead, he couldn't have found a better spot if he would have tried. He was in a mostly-forgotten campground, populated only by small song birds and an old caretaker, complete with running water, showers, and toilets. He had even discovered that the old man usually lived with his children in town, leaving the caretaker's house empty for days in a stretch. Tonight he'd be sleeping under the stars – he could hear the old man's television blaring even from this distance – but sometimes he got to watch TV and sleep on the couch instead.

Crunching through his fries, leaning back far enough to see Ursa Major through the branches of the oak tree, he grinned happily. Life was far from perfect, sure, but it was about as good as it could possibly be.

* * *

Like most diurnal organisms, Danny fell asleep not too long after the sun had set and a warm darkness had fallen over the forgotten campground outside of Drafus Falls. Perched on his branch, held up by a combination of his inhuman sense of balance and his ability to ignore the law of gravity even in his sleep, he was above the buzzing mosquitoes and the night's various creepy crawlies.

The same could not be said for the person walking slowly through the shadowed trees not too far away. His face was lit by the soft green light of the small radar he held in his hands, the annoying device emitting just enough light to keep his eyes from dilating and allowing him see the ground – and any branches and tree roots that he continually tripped over. He cursed silently as he stubbed his foot for the fourth time in as many minutes, stopping long enough to flex his toes in his shoes, contemplate buying steel-toed boots, brush a few mosquitoes off of his exposed face and hands, and get a new fix on his target.

The radar blipped a little as it caught sight of the supernatural creature up ahead. Unlike the far-more-complex radar system that adorned his vehicle, this small hand-held version told him next to nothing about the ghost he was stalking. He had no idea how powerful it was, what kind of unique abilities it possessed, or whether or not it knew he was there. The rifle at his side would be more than enough to take out any ghost he came across – but he still would have liked to know what he was facing. The last time he'd snuck up on a ghost unaware, the thing had turned out to be a fifty-foot-long dragon with a penchant for breathing freezing fire.

Taking a few more cautious steps, he lowered the radar and pressed the small screen to his chest, hoping to block out the light so his eyes would adjust. He was close enough that he should be able to make out the eerie glow of the ghost's form, especially in this darkness before the moon rose into the sky. His eyes scanned the trees, searching for any hint of a glow.

It took a bunch more unsteady steps before he finally found the oak tree, its large leaves not quite able to hide its occupant's glow from his trained eyes. He crept forwards a few more feet, quietly taking the rifle out of its case and checking the charge, never taking his eyes off of his target. Pointing the barrel of the rifle towards the tree, he tried to maneuver so he could see the ghost in question.

Pure white hair, shining in the star light, and a ragged black coat and pants quickly came into view, making him smile and stand up a bit straighter. It was none other than the infamous and mythical Danny Phantom, asleep in a tree. He tipped his head to the side and lowered his rifle, studying the boy for a few moments. It wasn't often that he got to look at ghosts for more than a few moments – most of them filled with adrenaline and terror and the fight to survive – and now he took the time to examine his prey.

Then he raised his rifle again, carefully aiming the barrel towards the young ghost, and charged the bullet. His weapon whined anxiously as it built up the charge, but the sound was lost in the darkness and the ghost didn't stir. A small light flashed in the rifle's sight when the weapon reached its maximum level and he pulled the trigger, the rifle kicking back against his shoulder as the glowing bullet raced through the air and slammed into the sleeping ghost.

Danny Phantom didn't have time to do much more than scream in pain, greenish blood flowing out of the hole in his stomach, before he dissipated and vanished forever from the forgotten campground outside of Drafus Falls, his scream echoing oddly in the otherwise silent forest for a moment. The small bit of blood he left behind quickly evaporated in the warm air, leaving small scorch marks on the tree branch.

The hunter looked his rifle over quickly before sealing it back in its case and picked his way out of the trees, back towards the road and his waiting vehicle, a smile on his face. His job for the night was finished.

* * *

Danny Fenton propped his chin on his hand and sighed, staring dazedly at Mr. Faluca. The teacher had just spent the past fifteen minutes explaining how to do the homework assignment – and Danny had managed to understand a whole ten words of it. It wasn't for nothing that math was his worst subject of all time.

There was also the fact that his nose was itching. In a normal person this probably wouldn't have meant much, but in Danny it meant something was about to happen. He didn't know what or when or how or why… just that something was about to happen. He wrinkled his nose, fighting down a sneeze, and looked down at his math book. Until the storm broke, his math needed to be finished.

He grabbed his pencil, determined to tackle the first problem, when a scream suddenly split the room. Flinching as his breath suddenly fogged in the air in front of him, Danny's pencil skittered across his desk. He looked up, his eyes instantly focusing on the ghost that had appeared in the middle of his math class.

It was screaming and writhing on the ground, green blood pouring out of a hole in its stomach. Danny was up and moving in an instant, not even thinking about the fact that he was 'supposed' to be afraid of ghosts. While the rest of the class backed away, racing out of the room in terror, Danny knelt next to the ghost and touched its shoulder.

The ghost looked up, sparkling green eyes filled with pain and confusion and fear, and focused on Danny's even as his life soaked through his ragged black coat and flowed onto the floor. They stared at each other for a moment, reflections of disbelief in their perfectly matching eyes, before the ghost's eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed to the ground.

Danny didn't bother to hesitate and think through the consequences. He grabbed the nearest coat, pressing it up against the ghost's stomach to try to staunch the bleeding, and screamed for someone to call for help; his parents, an ambulance, the nurse… someone, anyone who would know what to do.

Help wasn't long coming, but it was still far too long for Danny as he watched the small bit of color drain from the ghost's face and the supernatural glow fade away. It wasn't until he'd been pulled from the room, his parents quickly carrying the ghost from the school, that he even noticed that he was covered in the ghost's green blood, freezing and burning his clothes and skin as it evaporated in the air.

Trailing after his parents, his concerned blue eyes catching every drip of ectoplasm as it fell from his counterpart's body, he didn't put a single thought into what was going on or why Danny Phantom had suddenly appeared in his classroom. All he was able to do was worry about the ghost and hope that he would be okay.

* * *

Uploaded December 15, 2008  
It's -10F right now... and that's the HIGH temperature for the day!  
Thanks for reading!


	17. Waiting

_This thing stems from a challenge listed as thus: write an interesting drabble about sitting at a table and doing nothing. The challenge is hereby accepted and passed on to anyone interested in trying it. If you do, send me a message and I'll read and review it! Largely unedited; sorry for typos._

* * *

**Waiting**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

Phantom crept closer to the edge of the shadows, staring in fascination at the humans walking past. There were so _many_ of them and they were all so busy doing… _everything!_ His green eyes widened slightly as a few of the younger humans raced past him, screaming and laughing and joking with each other. Nowhere in the ghost world was there this much activity, this much going on all at the same time.

Wanting to keep to the shadows as much as possible, he slipped farther into the alley, knowing that his glowing eyes would be noticed by the humans eventually. They were such flighty creatures, always getting scared by things and running away and fighting things they had no chance of beating. He didn't want to scare them; he wanted to watch them.

One of them in particular, actually. He was waiting for her to walk by so that he could watch her, learn from her, and – if he was being truly honest with himself – try to be her friend. The girl with those piercing violet eyes.

She had no idea he was there; she didn't even know for sure that ghosts existed. Sure, she lived in the country's most haunted town and sure, she believed in ghosts for fun. But he was pretty sure she'd never actually seen one. And he knew that humans didn't _really_ believe in things they'd never seen before.

A bell rang in the distance and he shifted on his feet, worried that she might take a different way home today. She did, sometimes, choosing to walk home with that human friend of hers with the ugly hat. Today was Thursday, however, and she went to the Nasty Burger on Thursdays. Phantom didn't know why, but she never missed it. She'd walk in to the restaurant, order two strawberry shakes, and sit at the corner table and stare at the empty chair across from her. She only ever drank one of the shakes, never the other.

He had no idea why she did any of this – humans were weird – but now and then he would dare himself to walk up and ask. Today was such a day. He had practiced, at home in his lair, what he would say when she walked by his alley. He would step out, not trailing invisibly like he usually did, and talk to her. Smile and say hello and ask her why she sat at the Nasty Burger all alone every Thursday.

A little nervous about the upcoming meeting, he rocked back and forth on his feet, his emerald eyes locked on the slice of sunlight at the end of the alley. Students from the local school were streaming by already; it wouldn't be long now before the violet-eyed one walked past. For the first time in nearly a year, he would talk to her.

Yes, he would admit that he'd been trailing her around like a puppy for almost a year now. A year didn't mean as much to a ghost – not when he had all of eternity lying on front of him. Compared to most ghosts, he was moving at lightning speed, going up and trying to talk to her already. Many ghosts would have waited decades more before doing anything of the sort.

But Phantom already knew that he wasn't a normal ghost. His fascination with the human world already set him apart from the rest of his kind; his unique abilities, powers, and thoughts only widened the gap. If the other ghosts ever found out he was even _contemplating_ being friends with a human, they would probably set him on his head and lock him away for a century or two. Phantom wasn't entirely bothered with the idea of being tied up for that period of time – it was the knowledge that the girl with the amethyst eyes would be gone by the time he got out that concerned him. And it was for that simple reason that he kept his almost-obsession a secret.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he almost missed her. The sliver of sunlight revealed her black hair, her sparkling eyes, and her dark clothing only for a moment before she vanished behind the next building. Phantom leapt forwards, cutting through the building in his way, and slipped invisibly behind her.

Already he was berating himself for not staying visible, instead hiding behind the veil of his abilities. His powers set him apart and made him strong, but they were also something that never managed to help him succeed at what he was trying to do. Whenever possible, his ghost powers would interfere – and this was such a time. He wanted to walk up to her and talk to her, but his body stayed firmly out of the visible realm. He was just too nervous.

He eyes drifted down to the sidewalk, watching her shadow move against the cracked cement, smiling a little as he tried to keep his invisible feet from stepping on the shadow. He couldn't see his feet – he was invisible after all – but he knew where his feet were nonetheless. It wasn't much different than walking with his eyes closed, other than the fact that he wasn't in as much of a danger of running into something.

"Hello," he imagined himself saying, trying to determine what her eyes would look like when they looked straight into his. Perhaps her human eyes would reflect some of the green from his, death mirrored in life. He wondered if he could get her to smile; he'd never seen someone's eyes light up with a real smile before. Ghosts didn't feel emotions strongly enough to get that kind of reaction. Maybe he would tell her a joke.

"I don't know any jokes," he muttered, stiffening in surprise when the girl he was tailing glanced over her shoulder. He hadn't meant to say that aloud, much less loud enough for her to have heard. He watched, silent and unmoving, as she looked around, shrugged, and kept moving towards her final destination.

Phantom sighed, falling back into step behind her. Making sure to keep his mouth shut this time, he ran through the rest of his one-sided conversation in his head, depressed that he didn't have the courage to say it for real. "My name's Phantom…" He shook his head sharply, frustrated by the fact that all he had was a ghost's name. Would she even look at him twice once she realized he was a ghost?

For the millionth time, he wished desperately that he had a human name. He thought that maybe he just needed to pick one; he didn't know if there were any sort of rules for that sort of thing. None of the names he ever thought of sounded 'right', though. Not Billy, or Andy, or Eric, or William, or Trevor, or Jessie, or Colton, or anything. None of them were _his _name.

When she pushed open the door to the Nasty Burger, he followed, letting the door fall shut through him. He trailed forlornly behind her as she ordered her two strawberry shakes and carted them over to her table, watching as she sat in her normal spot and started to drink her shake. The other would remain untouched.

"What would she do if I walked up and sat down?" he wondered with a sigh, sitting down on the floor in the middle of the restaurant. The humans would never know he was there – one had already walked through him without so much as a shiver of recognition. How humans never knew ghosts were around, Phantom didn't know. He wanted to know, though. He wanted to ask, to talk, to find out the answers…

None of those things were proper ghost behavior. Curiosity was not an emotion given to ghosts and spirits and the other things that inhabited the ghost world. Learning was not a subject approved of by the ghost council. Ghosts sat back and watched, uncaring, waiting for time to pass and the endless circle of existence to swing back around to something they already know. That was what they did – they didn't desire to answer questions.

"Why are you here?" Lacing his fingers together and propping his chin on his hands, Phantom watched intently as the girl downed a good portion of her shake. His green eyes sparkled invisibly, his mind trying to decide what a strawberry shake tasted like. He didn't eat human food and he wondered if it was even possible for him to taste it. What it must be like to _have_ to eat all of the time – to have a stomach and intestines and a tongue and gurgling fluids and blood and all of those other fleshy things humans have. It was a mind boggling idea. How humans were even _possible_ had to be some sort of miracle.

Her eyes were staring blankly at the picture on the wall all this time, not seeming to notice anything that went on around her. Sometimes, some weeks, some of the other humans tried to talk to her and get her to respond – but she never did. She would look at them, blink, and then look forwards again. Ignoring the world, much like ghosts did. And she sat so _still_ compared while she was here to the other humans.

She was so fascinating on so many levels.

He drifted to his feet, walking a little closer to her. He had no thoughts of talking to her – not anymore. He had no delusions of grandeur that she would talk to him when she deigned to speak to any of her own kind during this strange ritual of hers. This was time where she obviously wanted to be left alone.

He stood close enough to her that he saw small goosebumps race up her arms from his presence. She shifted a little, rubbing her arms, but said nothing as he studied her. Of course she wouldn't say anything; she didn't know he was there.

Time seemed to stop for a few moments, the sun racing along its course while the Goth girl and the ghost boy waited by each other in total silence. Humans buzzed and bustled around them, but the two of them didn't move. There was nothing say, nothing to do, but wait.

She finished her shake she stood up, moving the chair backwards through Phantom and grabbing the still-full shake that nobody had drunk. Staring for a long moment at the empty chair on the other side of the table, she sighed, turned, and walked through the invisible ghost to throw away the uneaten shake.

Phantom closed his eyes and shook his head, angry with himself that he hadn't gotten up the courage to speak to her yet again. This was his cue to leave – to go back to his own home and wait impatiently for the next Thursday when he could try again. And try again he would. Over and over again until she either grew too old or he managed to work up enough nerve to actually speak to a human.

When his eyes flickered open, he took a small step forwards, gazing down at the forever-empty chair at the table. "Why does she sit and stare at you?" he whispered. He looked up, catching sight of the violet-eyed one standing by the garbage can.

His hand moved, his fingers twisting enough energy around them to become physical long enough to push the chair away from the table. Then he sank into the chair and put his arms on the table, looking across the small surface to the chair the girl had recently vacated. Tipping his head to the side, he tried to imagine why someone would enjoy sitting and staring at a chair. It made no sense to him; this was rather boring, even to a ghost.

The squeaking of a chair startled him into looking up, his glowing eyes widening when he saw the girl drop back into her chair, her violet eyes settling on the poster behind his head. She was gazing straight through his head. If he would have had a heart, it would have been pounding in his chest. He had no idea why she had come back; she normally just left after throwing away the uneaten shake.

"What are you waiting for?" he murmured silently, staring into her human eyes.

But, because he hadn't said it aloud, she didn't answer. She just sat and stared through him like he didn't even exist.

He thought about turning himself visible, but he figured that would just scare her. This was something special for her – he didn't want to ruin it. Instead, he leaned forwards, resting his chin on his crossed arms, and watched her stare over his head, quietly keeping her company.

He kind of liked this, sitting so close to her. He could almost imagine that she was sitting here with him, that any moment she would smile and look down at him and strike up a conversation with him. Her voice whispered in his mind, running through what she would say.

A small smile drifted onto his face, his green eyes sparkling happily. He couldn't wait for the chance to get to talk to her. Someday, somehow, he would get around to it.

Suddenly the girl spoke. She still wasn't looking at him – she wasn't speaking _to_ him – but her words whispered into his mind. "See you next week, Danny." Pushing her chair back again, she got up, walked to the door, and vanished out into the human town.

Phantom, still sitting at the table, tipped his head to the side in confusion. "Who?" he wondered to himself. Then he smiled a little, imaging that the violet-eyed girl had been talking to him. "See you next week, human."

And he would. He'd be waiting in the alley for her to walk past. Only, maybe, he'd talk to her next week. Maybe not, but he knew for sure that next time he would sit at the table rather than on the floor.

* * *

Uploaded December 19, 2008  
I don't have the desire to edit at the moment, sorry. :)  
Thanks for reading!


	18. Mass Delusion

_Rather short and derived from a journal on KaliPhantom's dA site. What if everything that happened in the show was all just some kind of mass delusion? My attempt at it._

* * *

**Mass Delusion**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

Amity Park has been suffering from a prolonged bout of mass delusion brought on by an incident in my parents' experimental lab and I am begging the media to pay attention. About a year ago there was an accident in my parents' lab, an explosion that mixed together all sorts of chemicals, and I believe that they have worked their way into the ground water.

The first victims of the chemicals started to display beliefs, emotions, and behaviors not unlike those of hallucinogenic drugs within a week of the accident. My brother, for example, _believes he's half ghost_. He's one of the worst of those affected since he was completely covered in the chemical mixture during the accident. His two friends, who were also in the lab at the time of the accident, bought into his delusion within a few days. All three of them believe, without a hint of doubt, that they go out and 'fight' ghosts. Creatures that don't even exist!

At first, I thought it was nothing more than a childish daydream. On one of the first instances I am aware of, my brother 'fought' against some mysterious force at our school, ending up doing nothing but making a huge mess of our lunch meat. I was there – trust me, he wasn't fighting anything that actually existed. His psychotic creation of a monster created out of lunch meat is actually rather easy to explain: my brother has always had a strange fear of meat since he was five. That was the year our parents spilled something in our drinks and he hallucinated that the Thanksgiving turkey tried to attack him.

The multitude of other 'ghosts' he has created have been nothing more than elements of a deepening psychosis. As one example, his anxiety over blending in and being nobody became the ghost called 'Amorpho'. Even his friends have managed to include some of their own delusions in this growing mass hysteria – one of his best friends has an abiding fear of doctors, thus the three of them fought an epic battle in an abandoned hospital, managing to drag the vast majority of their classmates into their hallucination as well. Each 'ghost' can be explained away through the simple use of Freud and psychology.

If it were just affecting the three of them, I wouldn't bother to bring it to your attention; I would have gone to a psychiatrist or something similar. I only write about these three as _specific examples_ of a crisis. A disaster that is growing in proportion with every day it is not addressed.

For the past nine months now, the public at large has been affected by the contaminated ground water. 'Ghosts' have been spotted all over town by some very affluent members of the community, lending credence to the idea that these creatures _actually exist_. I tell you – they do _not!_ The people of Amity Park are doing nothing more than participating in a hallucination brought on by chemicals spilled in the Fenton Laboratory!

This past Halloween is a great example of how these chemicals are affecting the average citizen. Reports spilled in that night about things 'coming to life' and 'turning into ghosts'. Similar reports are filed all around the world by people _when they are high on hallucinogens_ like LSD and dissociative drugs such as PCP and ketamine. By the end of October, I have no doubt that our entire water supply was contaminated, thus affecting massive portions of our society. By the time the holidays came around, no one had a problem with believing that Christmas trees could come to life and attack. Such a thing couldn't _possibly_ happen, yet the incident was reported in the news like it had actually occurred!

Our entire town is freely participating in this mass delusion. Everyone is aware that much brother is the much sought after – and completely imaginary – _Danny Phantom_, but yet everyone persists in insisting that they know nothing of the sort. No one comments when my brother disappears for long periods of time, no doubt out 'fighting a ghost' of his own creation. My parents are some of the worst at allowing this odd manifestation of our psyches to continue.

I, as well, fell for this for quite some time, allowing myself to fall into the addictive cycle of believing in ghosts and the idea that my little, clumsy brother could be The Hero. Fortunately, I came to my senses after helping my brother sneak into other people's dreams to defeat the embodiment of nightmares and switched to bottled water. Since then, I have seen nothing to indicate that ghosts actually exist, nor that my brother is anything more than a young man suffering from chemical dependency on hallucinogenic chemicals.

Even talking about what some people truly believe is happening in this town is incredible to me. Why anyone could possibly believe half of the things that the citizens of Amity Park readily swallow as truth is almost impossible to imagine. We even have a 'ghost weather forecast' on our local news, although whether that is subscribing to the inane or subscribing to increased ratings I have not yet scientifically determined.

There is also a precedent for this odd behavior. About twenty years ago a young man in college was doused in a similar mixture of chemicals, resulting in him becoming psychotic. He has been struggling against his neurosis ever since and has formed a myriad of unhealthy connections. What happened twenty years ago on a small scale is now happening on a much larger scale in Amity Park.

This situation needs to be rectified as quickly as possible! The mass media needs to get involved, informing the world about the contaminated ground water and how it can turn your average person into a delusional maniac. Large amounts of bottled water need to be imported into the city, the water supply checked and filtered for the escaped chemical compounds. If we don't act soon, this problem may spread to become world-wide! What will we do if the people at the highest level of government fall under the delusion that an asteroid is headed our way to destroy our planet? We could literally destroy ourselves!

Please, for all of our sakes, print this article in your newspaper. This situation is in dire need of being addressed.

Sincerely,

_Jazz Fenton_

* * *

Uploaded December 21, 2008  
No, it was never published.  
Thanks for reading!


	19. Humani

_Was asked to upload this here. AU drabble, unedited.  
_

* * *

**Humani**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

"Danel."

I groaned and curled up in a little ball, shivering at the lack of warm contact. The rest of my clan had obviously gotten up some time before… but I'd been having such a nice dream. The last thing I wanted to do was wake up and face the real world.

"Danel, get up," the voice whispered again – one I recognized as coming from my _aliri_ – and a wash of anxiety rolled over me. "Che ves a natiri, aliri." _We have to move, aliri._

I let my eyes open slowly and I looked up into his glowing eyes, the fluorescent green irises giving away his Humani heritage and making him the object of a world-wide hunt. My own eyes clearly marked me as his kinsman, especially in the half-light of the early morning. "Move where?" I muttered darkly, following my words with a quiet wave of despair.

"There's got to be somewhere," he said softly, falling back into English. Mikel dropped to the ground next to me, his body pressing warmly against mine. "We can't just… give up…"

Sitting up, I looked around at my clan. Nearly a hundred souls, ragged and worn from years of running and hiding, were scattered around the small clearing. Not one of them was making any attempt to run away from what was coming.

The sad, simple truth was that there was no place left to run. The Humans had boxed us neatly into a corner and all we were able to do was wait for the end to come. Each of the Humani in the clearing were sending out dismal emotions, creating an almost visible stain in the atmosphere. "There's nowhere to go anymore," I murmured.

He was silent for a long time, his emotions churning through the pain in his stomach. It didn't last long – everyone in the clan had known for a long time that we were almost to the end. We had all made peace with that months ago. Then my _aliri_ looked up at me and half-smiled, changing the subject. The force hanging over our heads was nearly impossible to ignore, but also inescapable and thus wasn't worth losing what little time we had left to worry about it anymore. "Cha nere vet sagralda tacha nalay." _You always feel so happy when you sleep_. A slow swirl of curiosity accompanied his words, silently asking a question. That was the best part about being _aliri_; we could talk to each other without having to actually speak. _What did you dream about?_

I didn't even think about lying to him. He was my _aliri_, I trusted him with my heart and soul and every fiber of my being. "I was dreaming about what it would be like if the Humans didn't know about the Humani," I said softly, smiling a little as I remembered my crazy-wonderful dream and the strange Human family I'd placed myself in. "A world where the Humani were a secret and we'd be free forever."

Mikel grinned, leaning against me, both of us taking comfort from the contact. "That'd be a wonderful world, Danel. No wonder your dreams are so happy."

I brought my legs up against my chest and rested my arms on top, staring out at the soon-to-be-rising sun. I didn't mention the fact that my _aliri_ wasn't in my dreams – something that I couldn't ever remember happening before. Mikel had always been there: my best friend, my closest companion, and my fiercest rival; day in, day out, in real life and in my dreams.

In this dream, though, he hadn't been around. My whole _clan _hadn't been there; I'd been the only Humani that I knew existed. And I'd been living with Humans, of all things… the same Humans that hunted my kind mercilessly for their own protection. I didn't know where the images had come from – my dream parents looked nothing like any Human or Humani I'd ever seen. Perhaps, I concluded with a small sigh, I had created them out of my own desires. The two were everything I'd ever wanted to be: smart and agile, strong and brave… and Human.

A wave of aching pain crested inside of me and I closed my eyes, burying my head in my arms. "Natare vere sagralda tacho enata," I whispered. _My dreams are only happy when I'm in them_. There was no way I'd ever be accepted by the Humans. There was no way I'd ever be anything but a Humani to be hunted and captured and locked away for the safety of Human-kind. I'd never have any of the things the Humans took for granted… life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were pipe dreams for the Humani.

A hand touched my shoulder, then slowly rubbed a spot at the base of my skull. I felt myself relax at the soft touch, allowing my _aliri_'s soothing emotions to burn away the worst of the ache. "Maybe it won't be so bad," Mikel said softly. His tone was upbeat but his own frustrated emotions gave away his doubt of his own words.

"Did they say how much longer?" I asked, looking up into the rising sun. The Humans, I knew, couldn't look into the sun's rays without hurting their eyes, but I could. They were missing the most wondrous sight in the world – the bright flash of pure light at the moment of sunrise.

"The elders aren't bothering to make breakfast," he answered.

I nodded and waited with the rest of my clan, watching the sun rise, knowing it would be the last one we ever saw. The Humans were coming to claim us.

* * *

I sat in the small chair in front of the desk and stared down at my fingers. I hated being alone – the first thing the Humans had done once they had captured us was separate us – not having a comforting presence around made all of the emotions in the air jangle against my nerves. My toes curled and I had to fight to keep from getting up and racing out of the room.

"Name?" the Human drawled, a bored aura streaking the air around her.

"Danel," I mumbled.

She didn't bother to return the favor and tell me her name. Instead, she just continued down her list of questions. "Clan?"

"Ashwega."

"Age?"

"Fifteen." I risked a glance up at her, noting the dead-looking eyes that marked her as Human. Hers were brown and completely missing the electric sparkle of the Humani. "Where's the rest of my clan?"

She didn't miss a beat. "Being processed. Parents' names?"

I fell silent for that question, shuddering when a sharp edge of anger sliced through the air behind me. I twisted around, but the room was empty of anyone but myself and the Human at the desk. It must have been someone in the hallway…

"May I remind you, Humani," she said darkly, causing me to jerk back around to look at her, "that failure to truthfully answer all of our questions is considered an act of war."

"I-I don't know who my parents are," I said after a moment. When her eyes narrowed and thin spears of anger started to edge into her bored aura, I stumbled to find more to tell her. I didn't want to antagonize the Human; whatever I was in my dreams, I was far from the hero in the real world. "I've always been told that I was found wandering around as a young child – I was adopted by the Ashwega clan when I was three. My birth parents are probably either dead or have been captured by now."

She studied me for a long moment, then nodded and wrote something down on her paper, her anger leaching away. "Do you know where you are, Humani?"

"Yes," I whispered. I was being processed, being made ready to be a slave to the Humans, being turned into something that was as far from a Humani as possible. Never again would I be free.

"You will be assigned a room," she said briskly. "The walls, floors, and ceilings of these buildings are all made in such a way that you can't use your _abilities_ to get through them." She slurred the world 'abilities' in a way only a Human would be able to. "From this point forwards you are to act Human, think Human, speak Human, and _be_ Human. Any digression from this – any overtly Humani act – will be punished severely. Do you understand?"

I nodded, my heart sinking and trying desperately to skip a few beats. I couldn't decide which was worse: her blatant uncaring attitude towards what she was doing or the fact that she could feel so bored and yet be so cruel towards the Humani at the same time. Downgrading the Humani was just a normal part of her Human life. "I understand."

"Your demonic language is banned; you'd do best to forget it even exists. I understand that you barbarians all sleep together – that is forbidden here. And _any_ mention of a 'bond' between your former clanmates and yourself will result in you being moved to a new facility."

I shifted on my seat, staring off into the middle-distance, feeling almost sick. Everything that had ever given me comfort, everything I'd ever enjoyed about being alive and being Humani, were being torn away. I had no more clan, I had no more _aliri_. All I had was me.

My stomach clenched and I had to swallow to keep the bile rising in my throat down, my fingers tightening painfully around the edge of the chair. I wanted to get up and run, locate my _aliri_ and find some sort of relief for this awful feeling. Mikel could fix anything…

But then I remembered that I had no more _aliri_ and a tear slipped out of my eye.

"And the name has to go," she continued, a bored sigh echoing in her voice. "Danel is not a Human name."

I winced, but kept silent as she stripped away the last thing that held me to my clan.

"Daniel," she said, waiting for a moment until I looked up in acknowledgement of my 'name', not even a flicker in her emotions when she noted the tear on my face, "you are assigned to building J, room 413."

* * *

I sat on my bed, staring into the distance, trying hard to keep from completely losing what little control of myself I still possessed. Everything I'd ever had was gone; the Humans had even taken my name from me. No longer was I Danel Ashwega, free to run and roam the Earth with my clan… now I was Daniel of room 413-J, nothing more than a body that would serve my community through manual labor until I'd learned to act 'properly'.

When there was a knock on my door I didn't move. Any of my clanmates would just waltz right in – there was no concept of individual rooms amongst the Humani. The second time the knocks came I remembered that I had no clanmates anymore, so nobody would just enter. I'd have to do something.

The third time they knocked, I got up to answer the door. I twisted the door knob and pulled the door slowly open, the gesture unusual to my body, and looked to see who it was. For a moment, my heart sank when I looked into the dead eyes of a Human rather than into the living eyes of a Humani. Then I blinked and stared at the strange Human, stunned. She was wearing a blue lab coat, her red hair cut short around her face, a pair of goggle-like sunglasses perched on her head. She was the woman straight out of my dreams.

"Daniel?" she asked, tipping her head to the side and quirking an eyebrow.

Confusion and curiosity started to color her aura, so I licked my lips and took a small step backwards. What was going on? How could she be such a perfect match for my dreams? "Yeah…"

She smiled. "I'm Maddie – my husband and I run this building. I wanted to welcome you; it's always nice to get new faces." She held out her hand – I knew that I was supposed to shake it, but I kept my death grip on the door instead, hoping that she wouldn't make a big deal out of it. Humans, I knew, did that sort of casual contact every day, but I couldn't bring myself to touch her. She wasn't my clan.

After a moment she just shrugged and let her hand drop, not even the slightest hint of anger in her emotions. "You'll get used to it, Daniel, I promise."

I shook my head, wishing that I could close the door and huddle on my bed and try to ignore the world. But that thought brought with it the depressing notion that I'd be all alone and I felt my toes curl in my shoes and my stomach twist. No clan, no _aliri_…

"I was actually wondering if you could do something for me," she said softly, smiling. "Michael's locked himself in his room and I was hoping you'd be able to help me get him out. I'm a little worried about him."

I didn't know this 'Michael' person and I really couldn't care if he'd locked himself in his room. In fact, I was kicking myself for not thinking of it earlier. I sent a wave of confusion in her direction and waited a beat before I realized that she wouldn't be able to feel what I'd done or comprehend the question. "Michael?" I asked softly.

She nodded and glanced down at her clipboard. "He came in just before you did – I assume you knew him. And since you're about the same age…" she trailed off, flipping pages. "Mikel?"

"_Aliri?"_ My _aliri_ was in the same building as me? My eyes brightened and I felt my heart lift a little.

Maddie's eyes shot up to mine. I couldn't read anything in her expressionless eyes, but her aura was suddenly tinged with concern. "You're not allowed to use that language here, Daniel," she said softly. "Please remember that."

I nodded quickly, wanting to find my _aliri_ as quickly as possible. "Which room is he in?"

Pointing down the hallway, Maddie took a small step backwards. "409."

* * *

Uploaded January 18, 2009  
Happy (belated) Birthday to me...  
Thanks for reading!


	20. Guillotine

_Another journal fic I was asked to post somewhere on FFN. I am not to blame for this one. I was trying to edit my story and couldn't get my mind off of medieval torture devices…_

* * *

**Guillotine**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

The man stared at the object of his demise with weak knees. The giant wooden structure seemed to almost be on fire, flushed red by the setting sun and the blood that had already flowed over its beams, and the enormous blade sparkled wetly. A chill wind was blowing - not that he really felt it - but the few remaining spectators shivered and pulled their thick woolen coats closer to themselves.

He was the last of his small group of 'traitors' to die. The executioner gestured for him to mount the steps and walk forwards onto the blood-soaked platform, but the man's knees locked painfully, keeping him in place. Despite the large, overweight soldier behind him that would poke him with the point of his sword if he didn't get moving quickly, the man found nothing in his body able to move. The hands bound tightly behind his back wouldn't clench, his eyes wouldn't blink, and there was no way on God's Earth that his feet were going to move. His entire being was focused on the solid wooden frame and the glittering blade, soaked in the blood of his comrades.

_I haven't done anything to deserve this_, his mind complained quietly as the expected jab of the sharp sword pierced the skin between two of his ribs. His body was shocked out of its frozen state by the sudden flash of pain and he stumbling forwards a few feet, placing his feet uneasily on the wooden steps and slowly making his way up to where the executioner was standing, face impassive.

Two steps from the top the man's foot slipped and he crashed to the ground, his nose hitting the wood hard. Spitting blood and unable to hear the laughing spectators due to the fear pounding in his heart, he staggered back to his feet and stepped onto the top of the platform.

"I didn't do anything," he whispered dazedly, suddenly nauseous at the taste of blood in the back of his throat and the iron tang in the air created by the spilled blood of the people that had died before him.

"For your vast crimes against humanity," the executioner intoned, his voice a little hoarse from speaking loudly for the first dozen or so deaths, "you are sentenced to die before God, your King, and your country." The executioner paused for a moment, seemingly waiting for a cheer to erupt from the slowly freezing and not-so-interested-anymore crowd, but then continued. "Do you have any last words?"

The man blinked at the executioner for a moment before quietly shaking his head, determined to not make a fool of himself like several of the others before him had. He was terrified; he was being killed for no reason... but he would not drop to his knees to beg for a life nobody would want to save. It was not his head that deserved to rest on the chopping block today - but it was his that would.

His arms - still bound behind his back - were grabbed roughly and the thick ropes holding his arms together were cut. He rubbed at his wrists, thankful for the momentary reprieve, but knew that his death was only seconds away. The swords surrounding him were sharp and wielded by men far stronger and better trained than he was. To try to escape would equate to being tortured, carried to the guillotine in pieces, and executed anyways.

Prodded forwards by the uncaring hands, he made his way across the wood that was slippery with spilled blood and stopped before the large wooden block. A few faces, the remnants of the crowd that had long since started to disperse, stared back at him. A sudden kick to the back of his knees dropped him to the ground, kneeling before the block, and a hard hand to his back had him half-lying on the block, his neck outstretched.

"May the Lord Almighty have mercy on your soul," the executioner said softly as he reached for the rope that would release the heavy, sharp metal blade of the guillotine.

The man had never thought himself brave and at this moment he had no reason to want to change that. His eyes were shut tight, holding his breath against the acrid smell of the wooden block, tears burning trails down cheeks that were already wet with the blood still pooling out of his nose. It was a good thing he'd had nothing to eat the past two days - he'd have made a mess due to the fear racing through his system otherwise.

There was an odd buzz - a faint jangling against his nerves - even as he heard a distant whirring noise. He had just enough time to register that he was hearing the blade slicing through the air before pain slammed into his mind and blackness overtook him.

One thing that was odd - he thought, even as he descended into that eternal darkness - is that the pain seemed to be in his _feet_ rather than his neck. Not that it really mattered. He figured he was dead either way - neck or feet be damned.

* * *

The whole problem with being dead is that one expects to _remain_ dead - at least for a while. After a life as well-lived and troubled as his, the man was fully determined to be dead for a matter of time greater than his troubles in life. Even if it was nothing but blank nothingness, it had to be better than false accusations and executioners smiling at you, knowing your life is worth nothing more to them than a new pair of boots.

Thus it came to his rather dismal surprise that he was opening his eyes again after doing what felt like little more than fainting. His toes still hurt, for crying out loud. Could he not have stayed dead long enough for his toes to have finished hurting at least? After all he had been forced to endure during his life, he decided he deserved as much as that.

Opening his eyes lead to a few surprises beyond the simple fact that a dead man was opening his eyes and continuing to breathe. One was the fact that he was in the forest - trees arced high overhead. Apparently, during his short stay in the realm of the dead, his body had been dumped in the woods and nobody had bothered to bury him. This struck the man as rather hateful. Surely he deserved at least to be _buried_.

The second big surprise was the large blue object hovering in front of him. He blinked a few times and sat up, gingerly feeling his neck for guillotine marks (finding none) and watching the blue object float. It was sort of man-shaped, transparent and tinged with a dreary cerulean tone.

_Perhaps it's an angel_, the man thought, his eyes widening in surprise, then flinched when the blue man turned around to blink at him in confusion. "Who are you?" the angel asked, his voice echoing in a way that caused a shiver to run down the man's back.

"I'm Richard," the man answered. "I was wrongly killed by men who sought power and I am glad to be in Heaven."

The angel gazed at him forlornly for a moment. "I am the BOX GHOST!" he said loudly, putting his hands in the air in what seemed to be an attempt at an intimidating pose. "Master of all things cardboard and square!"

The man - Richard - thought that was an odd name for an angel, but decided that arguing with one of the Heavenly choir on his first day being in Heaven would not endear him to God and thus pushed it from his mind. "It's nice to meet you," Richard enthused, slowly getting to his feet.

"BEWARE!" the angel yelled before abruptly vanishing.

"Indeed," Richard whispered. His bare feet stung as he stood on the sharp grass, looking around and trying to decide what to do next. If he was truly in Heaven, perhaps he would be able to find some of his more holy ancestors. He had to have a few of them in his family tree - somewhere.

Heaven was truly a spectacle, he decide as he looked around. The trees were all green and lacking in dying limbs, the grass was all cut to a short length and glittering in a sea of emerald, and there were children playing all around. The thick blanket of dark smoke and soot that layered his home city was missing and the sky seemed to glow like a giant, clear sapphire. Huge, shining structures - cathedrals made of silver and glass, he assumed - rose in the near distance like beautiful mountains. What a wonder Heaven was.

"Box Ghost!" came a shout as another angel appeared before him. This one was much younger, dressed in a stately black uniform, his white hair over-long and mussed, his unearthly green eyes scouring the landscape. "I know you're here; give me back my homework!"

Richard stared at the boy, more convinced than ever that the boy was an angel based on his eyes. "Angel!" he called, taking a few unsteady steps forwards. "I am Richard, and I greet you!"

The angel didn't appear to notice him at first, but when Richard called for a second time, the boy looked down at him. "Angel?" the white-haired angel asked.

"Certainly," Richard said. "For I am dead and this is Heaven and surely you are an angel, come to meet me in my first day in the afterlife."

Landing on the ground a half-dozen feet away, the angel tipped his head to the side, his eyes wary. "Are you okay, mister?"

"I have never been better," Richard said, pleased. "The Lord God has seen true to my heart and has raised me up from my tortured life to exist in peace amongst the angels. May I ask your name, young angel?"

"Um... it's Danny..." the angel hesitated.

"Daniel? The great prophet Daniel from the Lord's Bible?" Richard grinned. His first day in Heaven and already he was getting to meet with one of the great figures of history. Then he blinked, suddenly worried that by called Daniel 'young' he had insulted the powerful prophet. Perhaps that was why Daniel was acting so hesitant around him.

"Suuure..." Danny murmured, taking a step backwards. "I'm gonna... ya'know... go."

"Do so," Richard said. "I will see you around, great angel." He smiled pleasantly, then decided that if he helped the angel, perhaps Daniel would forgive him his sin of mistakenly calling him 'young' earlier. "The angel you are seeking, the one known as the Box Ghost, was last seen over there." He pointed helpfully towards the tree he was lying under when he woke up in Heaven.

"Thanks," Daniel said, vanishing as abruptly as the blue angel had before him.

Richard wondered for a moment if he would be able to disappear in such a fashion. He looked down at his hand and thought about it, but the decided that such a thing wasn't for men such as himself. Continuing to survey himself, he noted, displeased, that he had not been given a new set of clothes upon his arrival in Heaven. His shirt was stained with his own blood and his pants were wrought with holes and quickly sewn patches. He also noted, with a hint of delight, that he wasn't glowing and floating as the angels were. He seemed to be solid and human - just as the others that were running and playing in the large field.

The one thing Richard found to be odd – other than the fact that he had lost his shoes on his journey to Heaven – was that he was the proud owner of a new necklace. He plucked it out from under his shirt and gazed down at the intricate carving, barely making out a strange 'CW' amongst the odd glyphs. After a moment he shrugged and allowed the necklace to stay, assuming it was a gift from Heaven.

Looking around only a few moments longer, Richard finally decided to head off and explore this wonderful new land in which he'd found himself. Perhaps he would be able to find something new to wear - nobody else seemed to be wearing the clothes they had died in - and maybe even find something to eat. He hadn't expected that he would be hungry once he was dead, but he found himself to be mistaken. Now that he was getting over the shock of his death, his stomach was reasserting the fact that he hadn't eaten in days.

Taking a few uncertain steps onto the strange black path that ran through the park, Richard headed towards the town center, unaware that he was being followed by a curious 'angel' with white hair.

* * *

Uploaded January 22, 2009  
Why can't I see the cursor in the text field?  
Thanks for reading!


	21. Ranting

**Ranting**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

"…and _then_ Skulker – this big ghost with this obsessive need to hang my pelt on a wall – attacked during third hour. I still don't get why I have detention tomorrow because _he_ chased me out of the school. That was clearly not my fault. Not to mention the fact that one of his seeker-missiles locked onto my library book instead of me and now I have to pay for that _on top of_ how much it's going to cost to get out all of the goop he slimed on my math book." Danny Fenton scowled and crossed his arms, sending a short glare towards the backpack sitting by his foot, imaging that he could see the goop-covered book hiding inside.

"Of course, my parents were too late to catch the ghost, as usual, and didn't show up until I was eating lunch. Their net locked on _me_ and I ended up missing lunch because it took a half-hour to get me untangled. I was so hungry that I actually ate the carrot sticks Sam offered me. And, just because I'm me and this is my life, I was late to class because Dash stuffed me in a locker. Add on another detention for Friday."

Danny made a face and sighed loudly. "_Then_, because Technus infested my computer last night, fried my hard drive as I was trying to do my homework, and made me chase him all over Amity Park for _hours_ before I managed to corner him, I didn't get my homework done. The only good part about the whole thing was that Technus decided to take over _Dash's_ house this time rather than mine. He turned Dash's new laptop into a mess of melted circuits before I could catch him."

Blinking, Danny tipped his head to the side. "You know, that _might_ have been why Dash stuffed me in a locker today. Huh. He should really find a new tactic; he's got to realize that it doesn't do much. But then again, he's not the brightest crayon in the box."

Shaking his head, he continued. "Anyway, it was past ten o'clock last night before I get rid of the Master of All Things Annoying and I didn't get my history assignment finished. And since Mr. Dremer refuses to give anyone extensions for any reason whatsoever, which is frustrating, and he refused to even listen to me today, I've got yet another zero on my grade in history. Maybe next time I should chase the ghost towards his house rather than Dash's. Oh, and because my computer was fried I lost my science report, which is due tomorrow, and now I'll have to redo the whole thing tonight and it'll be horrible. "

"_And_ my parents went all 'adult' on me when I got home last night – yes, I know I was out past curfew, but can you really blame me? I couldn't just _let_ Technus run around town. I think that should be some sort of excuse, right? Now I'm grounded on top of having detention, so I'll probably have plenty of time to do my science report tonight. Again."

"After I didn't hand in my history report I ended up being late for your class – thanks for not giving me detention on Monday, by the way – because the Box Ghost decided that it would be fun to empty out all of the boxes in the supply cabinet. Fortunately he was easy to catch, just annoying beyond all reason. And sorry about the mess." Danny's hand rubbed at the back of his neck for a moment, a grin on his face. "Um…" He blinked. "What was it you wanted again?"

Mr. Lancer stared at his pupil, a little dazed. "All I wanted to know was where your homework was," the flabbergasted teacher said softly, stunned by how his student was staying sane with that kind of life.

"Oh." Danny chuckled a little and dug through his backpack. "My dad used it to mop up the leftovers of a demi-ghost Mom used for target practice this morning." With a grin, he yanked a plastic bag out of his backpack and dumped it onto the desk. True to his words, inside the zip-locked bag were sheets of paper covered in gooey green ectoplasm, Danny's name and some of his work still visible on the ruined pages.

Lancer stared at it for a moment, then looked up at his student with a disbelieving look in his eyes.

"I'd leave it in the bag if I were you," Danny continued blithely. "I caught it moving third period and I think it started muttering about escape plans fifteen minutes ago. Another couple of hours and it'll be trying to take over the world."

"Mr. Fenton," Lancer said slowly, trying to decide what he wanted to say.

Danny just grinned and waved, headed out the door.

Behind him, Mr. Lancer stared as the bag on the desk quivered and started to mutter dark threats. Suddenly not caring about Danny's homework anymore, Lancer grabbed his jacket and followed his student out of the building.

* * *

* * *

Uploaded January 31, 2009  
Sorry for more journal fics, I'll upload something new next.  
Thanks for reading!


	22. Butterflies

_For Natural-Sunlight for snagging the 30K pageview on dA. She asked for anything. _

_…this is definitely anything._

_

* * *

_

**Butterflies  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

It was a feeling of pure _potential_. There really was no other way to describe it.

He sat perfectly still, his stomach clenching, his mind silent. Every fiber of his being was full of some strange sort of energy – almost like anything could happen, he could do anything – and he allowed himself to revel in it for a moment. That odd thrum of power in the air made his eyes sparkle.

Anything. Everything. What did he want to do?

It was such a unique feeling. He'd tried to describe it to his friends before, but none of them had ever quite understood what he was saying. They'd never found themselves sitting quietly, not wanting to be interrupted by anything in the world, the universe spreading around him like an open book. Just for that moment, he _knew_ something. He knew that anything was possible.

He loved the way it made a smile jump to his face and the way that his insides squirmed. He loved that brief moment on the precipice before he decided what to do with all of this energy and it was all just _there_, able to be used, waiting, wanting, _begging_ to be used. It was better than flying in many ways, because flying was just that – ups and downs and lefts and rights and backs and forwards… and nothing more.

_This_ feeling was so much more than just directions. Time, space, and being fell under this feeling's sway. Truly, absolutely, _anything_ was possible.

It was for that spattering of moments when this feeling swamped him that the world opened its mysteries and let him in on the cosmic secret. He was the master, the ruler, the king of everything he could and could not see. Anything he wanted he could choose and he could have.

Sometimes, he chose death. Other times, he chose life.

From the very first time he'd done it on purpose – called on that feeling and let it settle in his stomach with its million fluttering butterflies – he'd known the danger. Instinctively he'd known how much trouble one could find oneself in when he is the master of the universe. No one with mere human comprehension should hold such a high post and, knowing that, he'd always shied away from what he _could_ do. Traveling the boundaries between the world of the living and the world of the dead was more than enough for him; the thought of more made his skin crawl.

But it was always there, hiding, tempting, curling around the back corners of his shadowed mind… for that instant, for that moment, he was _everything_. He could do _anything_. And, when one is master of the universe, a single moment would be all it would take.

Then, one day when all of those singular instants had added up into something that was so much more than just a moment in time, something new happened. The quiet feeling had crept up behind him like a shadowed wraith, a solemn revenant with potential wrapped around it and glimmering in its hallowed eyes. At first, he paid it little mind – he did not want to traverse the boundary that none of the living should ever dare to cross – and the potential would wait for another time. There were so many more important things to do than walk amongst the stars.

After awhile, though, his scratching pen stilled and he allowed the silence and potential to swirl around himself like an almost visible cloak of energy. His mouth twisted upwards into a small smile, such as it always did at the feeling of the universe opening up before him. It was such an _incredible_ feeling. Pure potential, able to be molded into anything he saw fit.

He didn't really mean to, not at first. It was nothing more than a passing thought as he sat at his desk, his heart stilled between beats for the fraction of a moment when the cosmos knelt down and waited for his command. The feeling grew, folded, expanded… and then he let it drift away, the small thought lodged firmly in the back of his mind.

Or so he thought. The truth of the matter was that in that brief moment when everything was his to control, even the smallest of thoughts lodged in the back of the darkest corner of his mind meant _something_. And that quiet something pushed a domino that set so many more things in motion. The clinch pin had been drawn. The key stone had been removed.

Far away, much farther than one could imagine but not so far that it didn't really exist anymore, a creature not unlike a butterfly might have flapped its wings.

Each time he called that feeling of potential to him, the smallest of thoughts slipped farther from the shadows and crept into the light. There were times when he would close his eyes for that briefest of moments and sway on his feet, quiet and smiling, reveling in the idea that he _could_, if he would let himself, do anything that he wanted to do. And, by this point, he knew exactly what it was he wanted to do. After all of this time, after all of this searching… he finally knew the one thing he wanted from the universe.

He never, though, allowed himself to. He could do anything, he could go anywhere, he could be the hero or the villain or the fly on the wall that watched the whole escapade, but he would not cross the line drawn on the ground. He was not the penultimate ruler of the universe, even if he had the momentary ability to be, and he knew his place in it. His own life and death could be changed, his own future rewritten – but he would not mess with the fates of others. Not even if his best of friends, his deepest of crushes, his soul mate were to be lying at death's door; he would never cross the line and he never wanted to.

Unfortunately for him, the butterfly that might have been had already flapped its wings. The smallest of possible eddies had grown into the quietest of breezes, which had billowed into the gentlest of winds, which had blow into something quite a bit larger than the flapping of a single creature's wings. With its slow build-up, that wind had gathered to itself _potential_, not unlike the potential that he used to travel the steps of the afterlife. By the time the shining zephyr of possibilities had reached a place that wasn't so distant it wasn't unimaginable anymore, it had matured into something of a small storm.

The tempest - invisible, intangible, hanging on the edge of the cliff of potential, the world trembling before it and knowing that anything and everything could happen - waited. It swamped the entirety of the world in its clouds of pure possibility. If anyone could have reached out to touch it, the universe would have been laid bare, remolded to fit their expectations and their wants and their smallest desires. The keys to creation were being held out.

_He _had a smallest desire; one that he no longer hid in the darkness like a painting he was embarrassed to own.

It was then, so many long years after he had first learned the true meaning of his ability to traverse the line between life and death, after so many uncountable times that he had turned away from what he _could_ do, so many times that he had tested his mere human mettle against the Powers That Be and had won… that he slipped. For nothing more than a fraction of an instant, no more time than a thought, less time than it took to bury it back deeply in his mind where it had come from, he allowed his desire out. He let himself wonder, wish, and dream for something he knew it couldn't have. He was nothing more than human, after all, and it is not in a human's nature to be infallible.

The storm, which had been waiting and wanting and _begging_ to do something… did. It curled and twisted, boomed and flashed, and the whole of creation turned to watch. Animals fell quiet, birds settled into trees, and scurrying insects hesitated in their eternal quests. Even the plants and the Earth itself ceased their slow movements for a few moments to listen and wait. Eyes of every shape and size turned to watch the potential swirl through the air, headed someplace no one could quite guess.

All over the world, humans stopped what they were doing for a moment, awed by the feeling that dashed through the air. Just for a moment, his best friends finally understood what he had meant so many years earlier when he'd tried to tell them what that feeling was like. Stomachs churned, eyes sparkled, mouths twisted into unconscious grins, and fingers tapped. Poets and artists and writers caught the misty potential and twirled it into pure creativity. Mothers created songs to sing to their children. Fathers chuckled and thought up something wise to say. Children looked up at the stars and dreamed of the life that was about to unfold before them. _Anything_ was possible, _everything_ was possible.

Lightning glinted and thunder rumbled as the feeling in the air sharpened and became almost blindingly bright. Something had to happen, something had to give, something had to _change_ with all of the energy flooding through the world. The storm _pushed_ against the fabric of reality, searching for the smallest of weak spots, the smallest of desires…

_Click_.

A quiet button being pushed in a quiet basement in a quiet town not too far from where he sat at his desk, having hesitated from pushing his pen across his paper to wish the forbidden wish for that one moment, was the weak spot the tempest had been searching for. In a roar of potential, in a flash of light, in nothing more than an instant, all of that potential funneled into one spot and slammed into something rather soft and fleshy, twisting it into something that wasn't nearly the same.

The world started up again, people and animals and trees turning back to go about their lives, but he still sat at his desk, unmoving. The pen dropped from his fingers and rolled across the papers, dropping unheeded to the floor. He didn't know what had happened, but his stomach was twisting in on itself and his eyes were wide and his teeth were tingling. For the longest of times he sat there, amazed by what he had felt and confused by what had happened.

He didn't know that not so far away a butterfly was stretching its wings for the first time, green and black and silver and full of all the potential of creation. The small eddies of possibility would drive them together, their futures inevitably intertwined, but for now both were content to exist on their own.

Sooner or later, however, he would realize that his smallest wish – his greatest desire – had been pushed into reality, twisted into a glimmering pair of sapphire eyes and a mocking smile that would drive straight to his heart, collected and boxed up in one young boy that was not so different from him.

And he was not so alone anymore.

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Uploaded February 14, 2009  
Inspired by the "Reading Rainbow" Theme song: _Butterflies in the sky / I can go twice as high..._  
Thanks for reading!


	23. Lost

_Happy Sweet Sixteen Foxxi! Hope you got your kiss.  
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**Lost  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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I cradled my broken hand close to my chest and did my best not to glare at the two people in the world who were _supposed_ to care about me. They were huddled around the small campfire they'd managed to start and were completely ignoring me, my broken hand, the blood that was steady dripping down my shirt, and the fact that my whole body was trembling from my cold, wet clothes. My fingers twitched and pain coursed through me. "Ow…" I muttered, biting my tongue to keep stronger words from leaking out of my mouth.

Here we were, probably hundreds of miles from anywhere, surrounded by who knows what in the woods, and I couldn't do a thing about it. Trapped as Phantom but as human and powerless as Fenton, I had no hope of getting my parents to listen to a word I said. Or, for that matter, get them to feel any sort of sympathy when Public Enemy #1 fell and broke his hand.

How did I get into this idiotic situation? To be completely honest, I _still _don't have a clue – a statement my parents refuse to believe, of course. I remember snaring my sister's breakfast on my way to school on Friday because I was running late, and the next thing I knew I was waking up in the forest with my parents glaring at me, surrounded by the wreckage of a crashed plane.

--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--

"This has got to be your fault," Mom accused sourly before I was even fully awake. My head felt like it was full of cotton, my body barely responding to my orders to sit upright. "Why did you crash our plane!?"

I blinked at her dazedly, trying desperately to figure out where I was. Scattered plane pieces equaled 'crash our plane' – check. Lots of dark and nasty-looking trees probably equaled 'middle of nowhere' – check. Now… why was I even _on_ the plane? Why wasn't I in school? "Uh…" Pain suddenly throbbed through my head and I hissed, rubbing at my forehead. At least the world wasn't turning circles, I could count _that_ as something positive.

Footsteps crunched through the wreckage and I twisted my head – slowly – and blearily stared up at my father. "The pilot's dead," he said, his voice softer than usual, "and I couldn't get a reading off the navigation."

Mom's eyes never left me, but she addressed Dad. "Communications?"

"Not working. I'm not sure how long it would take to fix, either." Dad knelt down beside Mom, dropped a bag onto the ground, and studied me carefully. "Why's Phantom here?"

"He must have crashed our plane," Mom muttered. "He probably hit it while he was flying – that was the jolt we felt just before everything went dead."

I let my hand drop away from my head, trying to ignore the piercing throb. Was this all my fault? Glancing from one to the other, I was pretty sure that they were waiting for me to confess and apologize. For a moment, I felt relieved that they weren't blasting first… but then I felt a welling of resentment that they were automatically assuming it this was my fault when it obviously wasn't.

Only… I tried to remember what had happened to get me anywhere near my parents' plane. I distantly remembered them telling Jazz and I about this ghost hunting expedition they'd planned – but they weren't leaving until Sunday. Wasn't it Friday? "What day is it?" I asked softly, wincing at the pain in my head speaking caused.

"Sunday," Dad replied instantly. "Why were you on the plane?"

"I don't know. Last thing I remember is Friday." My gaze dropped to my hands, noting the burns and cuts on my arms. The normal gloves were missing – didn't know where they were – and the fingers of my right hand looked scorched. I had a variety of small cuts and bruises on my skin that were starting to heal. _Could_ be the result of slamming into a plane and sending it to a fiery doom…

But my 'professional' opinion was that I was recently in a ghost fight – one I couldn't remember.

Mom sighed darkly and picked up the bag Dad had dropped between them. "Is this all the emergency supplies?" she asked as she dug through it, wrinkling her nose at the things inside.

Dad nodded. "Small plane – small bag."

I ignored them as they dumped out the emergency bag and started to paw through the supplies. The situation wasn't too bad, I thought. We couldn't be too far from help; I could just fly out and get some help sent back. I could probably even be back in Amity Park before they got home, ready to greet my 'I thought you were dead' parents with fake tears in my eyes.

I floated into the air…

I floated…

My forehead creased as I realized that I wasn't doing anything of the sort. I concentrated – something I hadn't had to do in over a year – and still I went nowhere. Blinking, a little concerned, I held up one my hands and tried to turn it invisible. Then intangible. Then make it flare green with energy.

_Nothing_.

My heart suddenly skipped a beat and I licked my lips. I was still in ghost mode, that much was obvious based on my parents' disdain of my entire existence. But I didn't have access to any of my ghost powers. That did not bode well.

"Eight granola bars, a flare gun with no flares, and a baseball cap?" Mom said suddenly, jerking me out of my thoughts. "What kind of emergency pack _is_ this? Where's the emergency transmitter?"

"What, still no cell phone?" I joked softly, snapping my mouth closed when Mom's hazel eyes burned into mine. I looked back down at my fingers, vowing to stay quiet from now on.

With no ghost powers, I was stuck in the rather horrible situation of being almost completely dependent on my parents – two people who wanted nothing in the world more than to tear me apart to see how I worked. I had few forest survival skills and I'd be mince-meat before too long if they decided to leave me alone. Until I got my ghost powers back, I'd have to play submissive captive ghost-boy. That meant no more smart-aleck remarks.

Maybe it was just the crash and the bash to my head that temporarily misplaced my ghost powers. Perhaps I'd get them back in just a few minutes or a few hours. Probably by sundown I'd be back to normal and be able to fly out of here and not have to deal with my 'let's tear the ghost apart' parents.

Dad grabbed the baseball cap and put it on his head before glancing back at the plane. "We could probably get the radio working again, depending on what kind of parts we could salvage and whether or not we could find a power source. From what I could tell, the main battery looks like swiss cheese."

I watched them hopefully as they chatted back and forth about how they could get the main radio system working again. Mom was better with chemistry but she was killer with a screwdriver when push came to shove, and Dad could fix – or, more usually, _un_fix – anything. And, while we waited for rescue, Mom was one of those outdoorsy-type people would could make a fire from anything. If I had to be in a devastating plane crash with two people, fate had definitely chosen two of the best.

That was when the plane caught fire. Mom and Dad jumped to their feet, but were forced to run for it when oily smoke started to balloon from the engine. I scrambled to my feet and barely managed to stagger dizzily to the safety of the trees before the plane exploded.

Well, so much for that plan.

--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--

"What now?" my mother asked, her arms crossed as she watched the plane burn. Her eyes cut to mine and I winced a little from my spot collapsed under a tree – she still thought this whole thing was my fault and, no doubt, blamed the explosion on me as well. Unfortunately, this was a thought that I wasn't sure was entirely incorrect. "Do we stay here and wait or do we try to hike out?"

"That's a big smoke signal," Dad said softly.

"And we have eight granola bars. Split between the two of us, that's four days if we eat a granola bar a day."

I opened my mouth to interject that there were, in fact, _three_ of us – but then I remembered that 'ghosts' don't need to eat. I did, but then I'd have to explain why I had to eat, my parents would probably not believe me anyways, and I'd be nowhere but having wasted my breath. Silently closing my mouth, I rubbed at my aching head and decided it wasn't worth it. Not yet.

That was when I had a rather random thought: my ghost powers were absent. Could I turn back into my human form? I felt a dizzy wash of anxiety as I glanced at my hands. Normally, when I ran low on energy I transformed back to human and there was nothing I could do to stop it. If that happened here…

I looked up at my parents as they argued back and forth about staying and leaving, then back down at my hands. I narrowed my eyes slightly and focused, imagining all of the energy in my body tunneling inside of me and hiding, allowing my human form of appear. I waited for the aura to appear that signaled that it was working… but nothing was happening.

After a few moments I broke off, panting a little at the effort. Leaning back and allowing my head to connect with the tree – _ouch_ – before I remembered how much my head hurt, I sighed. No ghost powers. No turning human. I was stuck.

"We were headed out into nowhere, Jack; no one's expecting to see us at all for another four days," Mom said. "They're not going to start looking until then. Thirty miles a day, four days… we could be over a hundred miles from here before they even realize we're missing."

"A hundred miles and lost," Dad muttered, but I could see that he wasn't really arguing anymore. I didn't blame him – it usually wasn't worth arguing with Mom once she got her mind wrapped around something. Besides, she _was_ the outdoors expert. If she said we needed to try to walk out, neither of us could really argue against it.

Neither of them asked my opinion – not that I had one, but it still stung. When they finally decided that yes, they were going to walk away from the crash site, they simply climbed to their feet, Dad shouldered the emergency pack that he must have grabbed before the plane exploded, and started to walk away.

"Hey!" I got to my feet, a wash of dizziness making me stumble. "Wait for me!"

Mom never hesitated, but Dad turned around to watch me trip over my own feet and collapse to the ground. By the time I got my hands and feet underneath me, Dad was crouched beside me. "Wait until you can think straight and then fly home, Phantom." I stared at him – I couldn't fly! – but he continued before I had a chance to speak. "Tell Danny and Jazz what happened," his eyes narrowed, "but if I hear a single word about you doing anything to them, I will hunt you down and tear you apart."

"But…"

He got to his feet and turned his back on me, following my mom into the woods and leaving me alone.

My mouth dropped open in shock, my mind blank for a few precious moments. They just… _left_. Left _me_ all alone in the woods… How could they do that? I was their _son_!

Eyes narrowing, I struggled to my feet and stumbled after them. They were _not_ going to leave me all alone in the woods – especially since I had absolutely zero survival skills and I, truthfully, didn't know how long it would take for my ghost powers to recover. If I knew it would just be a few hours, I would have sat and waited. But, for all I knew, it could be weeks before I could fly again; I didn't have weeks.

I had to catch up to them. Without them, I wasn't too sure I'd survive this adventure.

--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0--

Using the tree trunk to make sure I was still standing upright, I struggled to take a breath as I caught sight of my parents some distance ahead. I was barely staying in view of them, more bouncing from tree to tree than actually walking. My fingers dug into the tree for a moment, then I pushed off and started after them, determined to catch up with my parents despite the persistent ache in my body.

They knew I was back here, following. I'd seen both of them turn around to look at me a few times now and I was a little surprised that they were letting me follow. I was pretty sure that my mother could have gotten me lost in about five minutes if she wanted to. Chuckling a little to myself as I tried to keep my feet moving in a straight line, I tried to imagine what they were talking about up there. They were probably laughing about the pathetic ghost boy that can't even walk straight, maybe blaming me for the plane crash… maybe even coming up with plans to allow me to tail them back to Amity Park before they captured me.

My fingers brushed against a tree trunk as I caught another glimpse of my dad's bright orange jumpsuit through the trees. I tried to pick up the pace a little, my feet struggling to keep putting themselves in front of each other without tripping over things like roots and dead branches. The sun was starting to set – at the same time making it more difficult to see and raising my hopes that my parents would stop soon. After getting some sleep, my head would probably be feeling better and I'd stand a better chance of not being left behind.

My teeth ground together slightly as I thought about that. I really _should_ tell them who I was; this wasn't a good situation to be in and be surrounded by a coat of lies. There was a real chance that some of us – maybe even all three of us – wouldn't survive. We needed to work together and I knew that my parents would never willingly work with a ghost.

Maybe, though, if they knew I wasn't really a ghost… The only problem was that I couldn't think of a single way to prove it. I couldn't turn human and there was no way they'd believe me without some sort of proof. Even _with_ proof I wasn't sure they'd believe me.

I groaned softly and slipped under a low-hanging branch, squinting through the trees and not seeing anything. Having no choice but to trust to luck, I kept walking in the same general direction and kept an eye out for my parents. Less than I minute later I spotted them in a small clearing. They looked like they had stopped.

Hope welled up inside of me, my tired body unhappily stumbling towards them. Dad turned around, spotted me, and raised his arm with his fingers spread apart, a look of concern on his face. "Phan-"

I didn't hear anymore because my feet suddenly dropped out from under me, my body tumbling down an embankment towards a hidden creek I hadn't even begun to notice. I gave a strangled gasp of surprise, instinctively trying to fly even as my hands reached out to grab something to slow my fall. There was nothing to grab, no flight to come to my aide.

I slammed into the creek, the hand that was out to break my fall crashing into a rock just under the surface of the water. I heard the sickening crunch of breaking bone, a nauseating ache staring to well up in my hand, and struggled to sit up and get my head out of the water. Spitting out water, coughing helplessly, I knelt in the foot-deep, freezing water and stared around me. I cradled my hand close to my chest, noting the nice gash in my palm that was seeping red-green blood.

"Phantom?"

Looking up into my dad's eyes, I shook my head wordlessly, closed my eyes, and felt a stab of despair race through me. They wouldn't believe I was their son, they wouldn't slow down for me, and they wouldn't help me. I was just a stupid ghost – an _idiotic_ one that had doggedly been chasing them all afternoon. And now my hand was broken.

"Come on," my dad's voice said and I opened my eyes, seeing him holding out his hand for me to grab.

I got to my feet, wincing at a pain in my leg, and held out my good hand, allowing him to almost drag me up the small ravine onto dry land. As soon as I was free I started to shiver from the cold water – something that I'd never done before in ghost mode; I usually didn't have any concept of temperature as a ghost. Holding my broken hand close to me, I started limping silently towards the clearing.

"Are you okay?" Dad asked softly, reaching out and grabbing my broken hand. I gasped in pain when he touched it and yanked it back. He stared down at his fingers, obviously studying the not-quite-ghost-like red-green blood. "Why didn't you fly?"

"I can't," I said, looking away.

"Oh." He watched me as I collapsed to the ground at the edge of the clearing and then went over to talk to Mom. Mom set about making a fire, Dad grabbing branches for firewood, and I just sat there, my broken hand held tightly against me, blood dripping down my shirt, trembling from the cold that was seeping into my bones, and having no idea what could possibly go wrong next.

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Uploaded February 28, 2009  
Could be continued...  
Thanks for reading!


	24. Wingless

_You guys sick of me yet?_

_**Warning:** rated 'T' for **morbidity** and **animal cruelty**. Seriously – think before you read. You've been warned. But the ending is cute (Warning: I'm talking about Cori-cute, not… normal-person cute)._

AU – Alternate Universe. In this world, Danny and Phantom are twins, born to Maddie and Jack Fenton. Both are part ghost, having been in an accident when they were infants. And yes, I gave Phantom a name. Come on, if he was 'born' to the Fentons, they wouldn't name him Phantom… So he's Dante, a play on Daniel. Danny is more human, 'Dante' is more ghost, but both are what we call 'halfas' and neither of them act particularly… human.

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**Wingless  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

Inspired by 'Fifteen Birds in Five Fir Trees' by J.R.R. Tolkien  
_"Fifteen birds in five fir trees, their feathers were fanned in a fiery breeze!  
But, funny little birds, they have no wings! Oh, what shall we do with the funny little things?"_

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Dante crouched outside the window of the Fenton household, his white hair dangling in his eyes and desperately in need of a trim. His black clothes were already dusty from crawling around under the bushes and the knees of his pants were torn. Bright green eyes, simmering with a supernatural internal power, were focused on the ground just in front of his untied shoes.

Lying on the ground, completely helpless, was a tiny baby bird. Unarguably ugly with its feathers half-eaten away by mites, the bird was blue-skinned, scrawny, and dying. There was no doubt about the dying part. Dante could feel its life draining away; the soft pool of energy around even this miniscule creature was tainted with death. The bird raised its head for a moment, fixing one of its dull eyes on the young boy's face and giving a raspy-sounding chirp before collapsing back down to the ground.

Entranced by the ants that were already crawling over the bird's body, Dante blinked and leaned a little closer. He counted twelve ants already – two really big black ones, six smaller black ones, and four tiny red ones – and he had no doubt that more were on the way. Just for a moment, Dante tried to imagine what it would be like to be eaten alive by ants.

There would be tons of tiny bites, stinging as the ants ripped off tiny pieces of flesh, feeling the impossibly small weight of the insects crawling up his legs and arms, tickling. The best part, Dante figured after a moment, would be when they reached his face. He couldn't quite imagine what it would be like to have the ants find his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears and to actually eat him from the inside out. What would it be like, he wondered, if the ants crawled into his throat and built a home in his throat before he died? How long would it take him to die that way?

A ghost of a smile flickered across his face. He thought the idea of slowly being eaten alive was kind of exciting; much better than jumping off a building, being in a fiery plane crash, or suffocating beneath two tons of leftover mystery meat. Death by ants had to be pretty unique. He bet none of the other ghosts could claim to have died that way.

That was something to consider later, however. He wasn't ready to die just yet – there was still too much to learn in this human world. So far, the ants were topping his list of ways to die. He would just have to do some research to make sure that it was as distinctive a death as he thought it might be. He had to find a good way to die… he'd be the laughingstock of the entire ghost world otherwise.

With a satisfied nod, Dante focused back on the baby bird. It was totally still, the only signs of life being the shake of its body as it breathed and the quick blink of its eyes. One of the large black ants was crawling over its head, headed towards the slightly open beak. Watching the ants roving over the defenseless bird, Dante wondered what to do with it. Should be put it back in its nest? Tipping his head back, he scanned the bushes surrounding him and the scraggly tree above him, eventually locating the dirty nest quite a distance over his head. That seemed like a cruel thing to do to the ants though, especially since the bird was basically dead. The little insects would have to work a lot harder to get at it up in its nest.

He was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. Dante was a bit of an expert on all things dying and dead – being that he was partly dead himself – and the idea of the helpless little creature breathing its last underneath his bedroom window didn't bother him at all. It would only become annoying should it become a ghost and decide to haunt this particular bush. But he knew that his family didn't feel the same way about death as he did. For example, he'd figured out early on not to speak of his fascination with dying to anyone but his twin brother. Talking of how he was going to die seemed to scare his parents.

The bird gave another pathetic little chirp. What to do with the bird? Obviously his family wouldn't like to find the dead bird at their house. They might be especially displeased if they found out he'd just left it to die.

"Danny," he whispered after a moment, finally scooping the bird up in his hands. He could feel the faint heartbeat inside the warm creature. Deciding that Danny wouldn't want to see the ants crawling all over the bird – and wanting to keep his latest idea on how to die all to himself – he carefully picked them all off and placed them gently back on the ground. Then, holding the baby bird closely to him, he floated into the air and disappeared, rematerializing in the room he shared with his brother.

Danny was an exact copy of Dante, just with black hair, blue eyes, and less of a desire to die in the most dramatic way possible. He was lying on the bottom bunk on his stomach, feet kicking the wall slowly and studying a book that was open in front of him. He looked up when Dante phased through the wall. "What?"

Dante walked across the room and dropped onto the bed, showing the dying bird to his brother. "I found this outside," he said simply. The baby bird was still alive; its tiny molted body shivered in the air. "I don't know what to do with it."

Reaching forwards, Danny gently ran a finger over the bird's back, feeling the warmth in the fragile creature. "You should just put it back in its nest, I think."

"It's dying," Dante said, his tone not allowing for any argument.

Danny wouldn't have argued anyways. He could tell, just as well as his brother, that the bird was hanging onto life by a quickly unraveling thread. The rest of its lifespan was probably measured in minutes. "So… what? If you don't want to put it back, what do you want me to do with it?"

With a shrug, Dante stared down at the bird that was dying in his hands. "I couldn't just _leave_ it."

Danny joined him at staring down at the bird. They could see their reflections mirrored in the bird's dull eyes for the long moments that they were quiet, trying to decide what to do. The creature couldn't be saved and they both knew it. "Well, it can't die here. If it becomes a ghost it'll haunt our room," Danny finally said. "Maybe we should give it to Mom."

"You remember what happened when we brought her the dead dog, right?" Dante asked, surprised at the suggestion.

"Yeah, but Cujo was already dead. This bird's still alive." Danny looked up into his brother's simmering eyes. "I think what she told us only applied to dead things."

Dante wasn't entirely convinced and he just shook his head, watching the dying bird's body move as it took a few rattling breaths. "Mom can't save it anyways. And I think we should give it a burial."

"It's not dead yet." Danny shut his book and sat up, shooting his brother a look. "You can't bury something that's not dead yet."

"It's not like it's going to live long," Dante muttered, studying the baby bird. "All we have to do is wait. It'll probably be dead by supper."

Danny shook his head and rolled onto his back. "I wonder what we're having for supper," he asked, uncaring about the dying bird in Dante's hands. "Mom wanted to try out that oven-thing she was messing with."

"But what about the bird?" Green eyes glowed as he stared at his bother. "You're supposed to be helping me figure out what to do with it."

"Give it to Mom. Problem solved."

"No." Dante shook his head, getting to his feet. "She'll just…" He trailed off, not quite sure what she would do with it. He chewed his lip for a moment, then brightened. "Let's bring it to the part, wait for it to die, and _then_ bury it."

Danny shot him a look. "You want to sit in the park for the rest of the afternoon and watch a baby bird die?"

"Why not? It's a nice day."

Danny's blue eyes drifted over to the window, studying the sky. It _was_ a nice day. And the bird was almost dead anyways. Sitting up, he shrugged and glanced down at the featherless mass of flesh lying in his brother's hands. It shook a little as its tiny body struggled to get enough oxygen to keep it alive. "Okay."

* * *

The baby bird was lying on the ground between the twin boys, gasping for air. "I still think death by ants would be a neat way to die," Dante muttered as he carefully picked an ant off the bird's back and set it down safely away from the dying creature.

"Fire ants, Dante. People die because of fire ant bites all the time." Danny leaned back against the tree trunk, closing his eyes and enjoying the warmth of the sunlight. It hadn't taken any prodding at all to get his brother to tell him why he was keeping the ants off the baby bird. "Going to have to try for something else."

Dante scowled a little at his brother, then transferred his attention back to the dying bird. Its eyes were glazed and vacant by this point, the oily-looking pin feathers coating its body loose and bedraggled, an unhealthy blue look to its pebbled skin. One of its feet twitched reflexively in a vain attempt at imitating life, but the bird was practically dead. The only thing keeping it from drifting into the avian afterlife was its stubbornly beating heart and a set of lungs that were refusing to stop pumping air in and out.

It was really kind of tragic how the fleshy body of the bird was struggling to maintain its hold on life so long after the rest of the bird had clearly given up on living. Dante wondered if his body would do that too – instinctively try to hold onto life, his heart and lungs desperately keeping him alive beyond the point of hope – or if he'd slip into death peacefully. He sincerely hoped it would be the later. Gasping for air his body could no longer use was rather pathetic and would ruin any sort of dignity his afterlife would carry.

It did make him think, though, about why the bird was dragging out the fight to survive like it was. Surely even this small creature had realized that its life was over and it was only prolonging its agony. For a moment, he considered helping it along. Perhaps the young bird wasn't old enough or strong enough to end its existence in a more honorable fashion. But the thought passed almost as quickly as it was generated.

All creatures, great and small, were only given the chance to die once and Dante had no real idea if the young bird _wanted_ to die slowly. It was entirely plausible that this gasping for air and clutching onto the strings of life was something admirable among birds. Maybe the bird had spent its short life contemplating how it wanted to die and it had chosen _this_. Dante knew that he had no right to take that choice from the dying creature, and so he would let it gasp for air until its last heartbeat and wait, the bird's sentinel of death.

"How about spontaneous combustion?" Danny offered after those long moments of silence, startling Dante out of his musings.

"Too predictable. I'll find something."

"It's too bad you can't plan getting hit with a meteorite." Danny's eyes stayed closed, but a small smile flickered onto his face at the thought. "_That'd_ be unique."

Shooting his brother a glare, Dante shrugged. "I don't want to die because of an accident or a happenstance. I want to die on _purpose."_

Danny waved his hand, dismissed the subject, settling down to take in the warm afternoon sunshine. "It's a really nice day."

Quietly agreeing, Dante plucked another ant from the bird as a thought struck him. "I've never actually seen something die, you know that?"

"Me either," Danny said. "And don't tell Mom – she wouldn't be happy if she found out about this. You know how weird she can be about dying."

Dante nodded, unable to understand their mother's fascination with staying alive and avoiding death. "I wonder what it'll be like, when the bird dies."

"It'll stop breathing and just go still, I suppose," Danny said, but his forehead was furrowed, obviously trying to think it through. There was also the question of whether or not the twin half-ghosts would be able to _feel_ the bird's death. "Maybe feel like a twig snapping under your foot?"

"Maybe." White hair dangled in front of green eyes as Dante propped his chin on his hand and stared at the bird. "Maybe it'll turn into a ghost."

"Unlikely," his twin snorted, trying to image what the Ghost Zone would be like if all birds that died became ghosts.

"With us by it when it dies?"

Danny opened an eye and glanced at Dante, unable to think up an answer to that. Strange things happened around the two boys, they already knew that. There was definitely the probability that their presence would affect the bird's death.

"I've never seen anything become a ghost," Dante continued softly, his eyes distant and vacant. "I've dreamed about it, but I've never actually seen it." A finger reached down to brush over the bird's back, feeling the fluttering of the dying heart. "I'd like to see that."

The baby bird suddenly blinked, its dead eyes focusing for a moment, its wings stretching and its legs tensing. Dante drew his hand back and held still, his brother sitting up, both of them gazing intently at the small bird as it shuddered, its lungs suddenly refusing to work. They felt the life in the bird _pulse_ and quiver and crack. Two breaths were held, four eyes fixed on the small creature as it shook silently, its neck stretching and its beak opening wide, its cold blue flesh ripping as its muscles contracted on last time.

Both of the half-human boys felt the bird die.

It was like nothing they'd ever felt. One moment the bird had been clearly alive, and then there had been this quick moment in time – this _sound_, this feeling, this _searing_ joy that had slashed through them – and then the bird was dead.

Dante looked up at his brother, his green eyes shining as he remembered the burst at the bird's death. How beautiful and calming and wonderful it had felt. For that instant, everything had fallen into line and all of existence had made perfect sense. Dante was fully convinced that he had felt the bird's soul leave its body and flood away into the afterlife. It had brushed past him on its way out, a silent _thank you_ for standing guard over the last of its life.

A smile was on his brother's face as well, even as the black-haired boy reached down to touch the lifeless corpse. "That was cool," Danny breathed. "Did you feel that?"

Dante was about to answer, wanting to talk about it, when Danny's finger brushed against the bird's body and something moved. An ugly, glowing green head lifted out of the heap of unwanted flesh, glowing emerald eyes focusing on Dante, and then turning to stare at Danny. "A ghost!" Dante said, his eyes wide with surprise.

The ghost of the dead bird stood up on shaky legs and staggered away from its corpse, stumbling to a halt next to Dante's knee. It looked up at him and gave a shaky, echoing _chirp_. Its emerald eyes fixed on something crawling on Dante's pants, then it carefully reached out and plucked the ant from Dante's leg, setting the errant ant back on the ground before letting out another pitiful _chirp_, the ratted pinfeathers on its head and neck sticking out at weird angles.

Looking up, Dante's eyes met Danny's, an upwelling of emotion tackling his heart. It was the ugliest creature on the planet – even uglier than Jazz right away in the mornings – but he'd stood watch over its death and, at least in his mind, had helped bring about its rebirth as a ghost. There was only one thing left to say. "Can we keep it?"

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Uploaded March 15, 2009  
See? CUTE! Aw... the half-ghosts' have a pet...  
Thanks for reading!


	25. Rogue Shoe

_Sorry I haven't been on here much... but I get lost, you know? _

_Happy April Fools. ;)  
_

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**Rogue Shoe  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

Danny sat across the table from his mother, two feet and an eternity apart. He played quietly with his spoon, unwilling to break the uncomfortable silence that had grown in between them. The only sounds were the occasional scrape of the spoon against a bowl as Maddie scooped her breakfast into her mouth, her eyes distant and thoughtful.

He wished he could read minds, just for a moment. He wanted to know what she was thinking more than anything. Or maybe he just wanted to know what the right thing to say was… he didn't know. His mouth opened, words wanting to be said, but he stifled them and closed his mouth again, returning to absently playing with his spoon.

He could apologize again, but he'd already done that. A million times over, he'd apologized. Besides, she had already accepted his apology and had practically ordered him to stop saying 'sorry' nearly a week ago. He could tell her that he loved her, but she knew that and he knew that she loved him back. He could tell her about the ghost that had tried to bring his clothes to life the night before, but then he'd be stuck helping to decontaminate his room all weekend.

Nothing had changed. Everything had changed.

All the words had been spoken, all the explanations given, all the apologies accepted on all sides. There was nothing left to say and everything was back to normal. His parents were lost in their own little worlds of thought, Danny was pretty much ignored by everyone, and the world was still spinning crazily on its axis. Normal.

Only… something wasn't quite right and Danny couldn't always put his finger on it, no matter how hard he tried. There was something in the way his mother hugged him, in the way his father smiled at him, in the all-too-normal silence that invaded the breakfast table. It wasn't anything he could point to and say that _that_ was what was wrong, that his parents weren't acting right. No, his parents were acting perfectly.

And that was the problem. _Acting_.

Maddie caught him looking at her and she smiled, the gesture not touching her eyes. "You ready for school, sweetheart?"

Danny nodded silently and let his eyes drop down to the bowl downheartedly, knowing that his mother was doing the same on her side of the table, neither of them able to come up with something to say. Normally, they wouldn't have said anything to each other beyond 'goodbye' or something – that was the way his family worked – but today both of them were searching for something to say to fill the painful silence.

"Anything fun planned?" she tried.

"I have a test today in science," Danny said quietly.

She smiled again. "I'm sure you'll do wonderful."

Danny shrugged, twisting his spoon in his bowl like it was a drill that could dig a hole to the other side of the world. Not only would it have gotten him away from the imminent test, but it would have saved him from this stilted breakfast. "Thanks," he muttered.

A few more moments of uncomfortable silence were all Danny could take, getting to his feet and quietly setting his bowl into the sink before leaving to hunt down his backpack. Breakfast was one of the worse times of the day. When Jazz was around to run interference, everyone was a bit more natural. But when it was just him and his parents, it all felt like some sort of production.

Feeling around under his bed for a lost shoe (remembering how it had run under there in the middle of the night to escape the ghost that had brought it to life), Danny sighed. From the outside, everything was perfect and back to normal between Danny and his family.

But underneath, it was far from normal. Deep down, his parents loved and accepted him… but a gulf had opened up between them. The years of lies and evasions and cover-ups had left their toll on their relationship – one that nobody was willing to acknowledge existed. Now they each kept up the mask of normalcy, perfectly aware that it wasn't fooling anyone, but unable to come up with anything better to do.

"_OW!_" He yanked his hand back, jolted out of his contemplation, and stuck his bleeding finger in his mouth. "What the…" Kneeling a little more, Danny squinted to see into the shadows. He could hear a faint growling sound and see something moving around, but he really couldn't see well enough to figure out what it was.

Taking his finger out of his mouth and noting the tooth marks, Danny put his hand a cautious few inches under the bed and collected a bit of energy around it. His hand started to glow a vague green, illuminating the dusty, forgotten corner and the snarling creature.

It was his shoe, still alive after all that time. The rip in the front had formed a row of sharp-looking teeth, the undone laces held up like twin scorpion tails. It had even managed to grow six battered-looking legs that allowed it to scuttle drunkenly back and forth like some sort of hermit crab on drugs.

"Danny? Are you okay?"

Danny twisted around to see his mother standing in the doorway, the true concerned look in her eyes fading to the mask-like acceptance when she saw his glowing hand. "Yeah," he said, allowing the energy to dissipate. "My shoe bit me."

Blinking, Maddie stepped into his room and knelt down beside his bed. "Say again?"

"A ghost brought it to life last night and it apparently doesn't like me this morning," Danny said, showing her his bleeding finger and falling silent so that his mother could hear the faint growling noises.

She stared at him for a long moment before peering under his bed. "You know, I thought you grew out of the monster-under-my-bed stage years ago." Squinting, she shook her head. "I can't see it."

Danny lay on his stomach, pointing to the far corner. "It's back there, see?" When she shook her head again, Danny bit his lip. He _could_ go get a flashlight from the kitchen – in fact, that's what his stomach was telling him to do – but there was a much quicker solution to the lack of light. With one last glance at his mother, Danny willed the energy around his hand back to life.

Maddie tensed a little, her gaze drawn irresistibly to her son's glowing hand, before dragging her eyes away to survey the snarling shoe. "That is a shoe," she said quietly.

"Got any ideas?" Danny asked, his breath catching a little in his chest. He wasn't comfortable using his ghost powers around his parents, even though they knew about them. Maddie and Jack's acting became even more stilted when Danny wasn't being 'normal'.

"Yes, actually." She studied the shoe for a moment longer, watching it haphazardly move around the dusty floor. "You need to clean better." There was a devilish sparkle in her eye and she shot him a grin that was, just for a moment, completely real.

"Mom," Danny groaned, allowing the energy around his hand to die.

She seemed to relax a little as Danny became more human, sitting up and wrinkling her forehead. "If we could catch it, I'm sure the Fenton Weasel could pull the energy out of it."

Danny picked up one of the long rods he was using for his history project and arched an eyebrow. "I'll chase it out from under there, you catch it?" At her nod, he added, "Watch out for the teeth."

He dropped back to his stomach and poked the wooden rod under the bed, sweeping it back and forth. A startled hiss and the sound of shoelaces hitting the end of the rod signaled that he had found it. Danny jerked the rod sideways, sending the shoe tumbling out from under the bed.

The shoe quickly regained its footing and, even as Maddie reached down to grab it, it was shuffling across the room. "Hey!" Danny shouted as it headed for the door, clamoring to his feet and barely managing to slam the door shut before the shoe made it into the hallway. It hissed at him, the shoelaces swiping towards his feet and forcing him to dance backwards. "Knock it off."

"I got-" Maddie started, but the shoe must have seen her coming, since it twisted around to snap at her fingers while skittering sideways out of her reach. She jerked her hand out the way of its sharp teeth, a bemused grin growing on her face.

Danny pounced on it, hoping to catch it beneath him, but the shoe proved to be surprisingly fast when it wanted to be. It whipped out from under him with milliseconds to spare, snarling angrily as it raced drunkenly around the room. He scrambled after it, trying to grab onto a shoelace.

When the shoe made a break for the relatively safety of the bed once more, Maddie got in its path, reaching out to try to grab it. The shoe rapped her hands with a quick slap of a shoelace before twisting around and trying to head for the desk. "Danny, the desk!"

Danny skidded along the floor on his knees, only barely coming between the darkness under the desk and the rouge shoe. "Got ya!" he exclaimed, but the shoe dodged his hands again, slipping over to the wall and racing along the baseboard. Danny was on his feet, chasing after it, but his feet caught on a discarded shirt and he collapsed to his hands and knees.

"You okay?" Maddie asked, a giggle in her voice as she watched the possessed shoe scuttle back under the bed.

Danny nodded, dropping the rest of the way to the ground and chuckling softly. "I give up," he confessed as his mother knelt down next to him, both of them smiling at the idiocy of the situation. "I've been defeated by a shoe."

"You'll have to wear your gym shoes today," Maddie agreed, her grin unable to fade. "And you're going to be late for school, kiddo."

"Yup." Danny levered himself off the ground and snagged his backpack. He glanced back at her as she pulled herself up, the smile still on his face unfettered by the emotions of the past few weeks. _It's okay,_ he was dying to say_, I know. You don't have to try to pretend. _The words would never escape his mouth, but in this brief moment when both of them had pulled away their masks, the sentences were dancing in his eyes.

As he turned to leave, Maddie pulled him into a sudden hug. "I love you, sweetie," she whispered fiercely. "No matter what. Don't forget that."

"I know, Mom," he said. "I love you to."

And, as the façade of normalcy slammed back into place, Danny twisted out of his mother's grasp and headed for the front door. He hesitated with his hand on the doorknob to leave, knowing that he wouldn't normally yell goodbye to his parents (they wouldn't listen anyways), and then silently let himself out and onto the street, a small smile still on his face.

It hadn't been much, but maybe a rogue shoe was the start to a bridge to cross that chasm between them.

* * *

Uploaded April 1, 2009  
And this is when the backpack starts to growl...  
Thanks for reading!


	26. A Sledding Story

_How to… create an angst story. XD Or, at least, how I do it. Told in story form rather than the normal tutorial form, so I thought it'd fit here… somewhere. _

**_Warnings_**_ for death and angsty situations._

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**A Sledding Story  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

The pencil dipped closer to the page, then darted away, the author sighing angrily. Why was this so hard? She slammed her hand down, a small vial of electric-green ink rattling on the table and falling onto its side. It rolled blithely across the table, not realizing how close to the edge it was coming. The author – who happened to be a ghost who noticed such things as soon-to-be-smashed ink bottles – caught it with a muttered curse and set it upright.

"Stupid Ghostwriter and his stupid challenges," she snarled. "Oh, let's write a novel during the month of November. Oh, let's write an angst story in a weekend. What's it going to be next – rewrite some famous novel in limerick? I'd rather be shopping for a new pair of boots."

She dropped her pencil, sitting back to run her hands through her short hair. "Focus, focus, you can do this. It's not that hard. You just need a plot. Forget about the boots… you've got no money anyways."

Closing her eyes, she thought hard about some sort of angst-ridden plot, but nothing came to mind. "Fine," he growled softly, "we'll start somewhere else. The setting, maybe. Settings are good places to start."

_And so it was that the local ghost boy of Amity Park was at the mall…_

"No," she whispered, fiercely crossing out the offending word. "Not the mall, that's been done so many times. I need something original."

_…was on top of the biggest hill in all of Amity Park for some fun winter games. With his friends by his side and his breath pluming happily in the clear, freezing air, he grabbed one of the round sleds and turned around to grin at his want-to-be girlfriend. "Come on, Sam, just one time."_

"Perfect! The irony between the pleasant scene and the angst to come is a good start." The author grinned and set her pencil back onto the paper. "Now, for more dialogue and character set up."

_"I don't do sleds," Sam said, stuffing her hands deeper into her winter jacket. "We go over this every year, Danny."_

_"I keep hoping you'll forget," Danny pouted, holding the sled out pleadingly. "Just once?" At the sharp shake of her head, Danny sighed and arched an eyebrow at his other best friend. _

_Tucker nodded, a grin on his face. "Shall we make a bet on the outcome of this?" After carefully brushing all of the snow off of himself, he dug his third-best PDA out of a special water-proof pocket and glanced down at the list of rules the two of them had created the day before. "No ghost powers, hitting at least two jumps on the way down, no ghost powers, one person per sled, no ghost powers, first to the bottom wins, and no ghost powers?"_

_Danny chuckled a little. "Fine, whatever. Loser has to shovel both our sidewalks next time it snows."_

_"Deal." Tucker carefully stuck the PDA back into his pocket and grabbed his own sled. "Ready?"_

_"Ready." _

The ghost grinned happily, tapping the eraser of the pencil against her lips as she contemplated the words already on the paper. "So we've got a start. Where should we go from there? Angst… angst… Should I kill someone?"

She toyed with a few ideas in her mind for a moment, thinking that Sam and Tucker would be obvious targets for destruction. "No, no… I need something new. Creative. What's the point of rewriting something that's been done before?"

Closing her eyes, she pictured the scene: the two boys poised at the top of a snowy hill, their sleds held ready to hurtle them downwards, the girl standing back and watching with the faint hint of a smile on her face. "Good, good. But I need more." Trees brushed into existence around the edge of the sliding hill, mounds of snow piled in jumps and barriers appeared, and laughter floated through her mind as dozens of kids appeared sliding and enjoying the snow day.

A squirrel ran across the image in her head and she briefly thought about doing something with it – perhaps making the squirrel the catalyst – but discarded it. "Angst is emotion. Angst is dark. Angst is tears and fears and terror and torment. Angst is…"

Her eyes started to glow happily as a wicked smile crossed her face. "…Overkill."

_Danny ran forwards before Tucker could say 'go', the snow slipping under his boots for a moment. Gaining precious speed, he threw his body into the air and, after making sure the slide was securely under him, torpedoed down the hill. Tucker was yelling manically from just behind him, yelling something about Danny cheating, but Danny wasn't paying any attention._

_Sledding was better than flying in many ways. When Danny flew he was in complete and utter control every moment of his flight – he could stop dead, turn on a dime, or go into a freefall… but only if he wanted to. He was never in any danger. _

_This act of careening down an icy hill at top speed with only an unsteerable piece of plastic under him to keep him going… this was so much better. The round saucer-shaped sled twirled him around and around like a crazy tilt-a-whirl each time he shifted his balance so that he hit the first jump going feet-first. Screaming in delighted terror, Danny caught sight of Tucker's wild descent down the hill for just a moment before he slammed hard into the ground and the breath was momentarily pushed from his lungs._

"Should I have a ghost show up to ruin his day?" she murmured, pausing for a moment to look around her lair. But her nose was already wrinkling. "Ghosts are always the evil ones in the story. We need to switch that."

Her forehead creased for a moment, picturing one of the beat-up cars that had appeared at the bottom of the hill. There was a teenager sitting behind the driver's wheel, tapping his fingers on the dashboard in time to the music and wondering how many more times his little brother could possibly go down a stupid hill. The teenage boy picked up his cell phone, grinning at a message from his girlfriend, and settled in for a texted conversation.

"No, that can't be it," she muttered darkly. "Unless the kid gets possessed he's not going to do anything but sit there, and then we're back to the ghost being the bad guy." She pushed the kid to the back of her mind and searched for something else. "Bingo," she whispered as some of the darker corners of the hill came into view. "Let's foreshadow. All good stories have foreshadowing."

_Danny took the second jump of the hill the right way around, his eyes glittering as the sled went airborne. The sled twirled a little before crashing back into the snow and continuing its untamable ride down the hill. "WATCH OUT!" he screamed to one of the smaller kids walking blithely across his path and barreled past with inches to spare._

_As the sled slowed, the hill bottoming out, Danny laughed and craned his head around to find Tucker. The techno-geek was about half-way up the hill still, having spilled out of his sled on one of the jumps. Tucker was just picking himself up and brushing the snow off, his sled missing and apparently having continued on down the hill by himself. _

_Scanning the lower parts of hill in search of the rogue sled, Danny put his feet down and his sled skidded to a halt. "There it is," Danny laughed as he spotted the bit of red still plastic slowly gliding down one side of the hill, climbed to his feet, and grabbed his sled. _

_Danny glanced up at Tucker in time to see Tucker point to the sled. Danny waved his arm and headed over towards the sled to grab it and carry it back up the hill. "Hey," he called to a lone teenage girl that was standing by where Tucker's sled had finally stopped. He grinned at her, jogging a little to collect the sled._

_She glanced at him, but otherwise didn't move. Her long red jacket hung limply down around her knees and a black hat was stuck firmly on her head, almost hiding her eyes. A half-hearted smile twitched the corners of her mouth for a moment as Danny approached._

"Nice use of words. Red and black – miserable colors – limply hanging coat, hat covering the eyes, half-hearted smile…" the ghost quietly congratulated herself on the introduction of her character. Quietly reminding herself that the new girl was _not_ going to be a ghost, she bit her tongue and contemplated what to do next.

"Danny needs to be caught unaware," she murmured softly. "It's no fun if he sees it coming."

_Picking up the sled, Danny smiled at the strange girl before turning around the head back up the hill. He joined the laughing line of people heading up the stair-like trail carved into one area of the sliding hill, hurrying to get back to his friends. _

_Tucker was waiting about half-way up, hands stuck in his pockets, a layer of snow still covering his hat and coat. "Dude. You cheated." Tucker poked him once before claiming his sled and falling into step. _

_"I listened to the rules. No ghost powers, one person per sled, first to the end wins… you never mentioned waiting to hear the word 'go'," Danny retorted._

_Tucker scowled at him. "It's a redo anyways. I hit someone on the way down."_

"How in the world is that one girl going to send this story into a dive-bomb of over-the-top angst?" the ghost groaned. "I'm doing filler again. I need some _action_ here!" The image of the girl, shoulders hunched against the cold and hands stuffed forlornly into pockets, drifted through her mind. "Maybe I should go back to the kid in the car."

Metal glinted in the girl's coat, effectively derailing the author's thoughts until pencil once again touched paper. "Oh!"

_Danny topped the hill, laughing at one of Tucker's latest failed attempt to pick up the girl in front of them, and headed towards Sam. "I win," he declared when he got within earshot._

_"It's a redo," Tucker grumbled, trailing behind him. _

_"You fell off your sled." Sam uncrossed her arms long enough to send Tucker an evil grin and stuff her hands in her pocket. "Danny wins."_

_"Unfair!" Tucker protested even as Danny dragged him back towards the edge of the hill. "Your girlfriend always sides with you."_

_"She's not my girlfriend!" _

_Tucker grinned a little when Danny blushed, dropping the topic. "Redo?"_

_"Always." Danny shifted his weight, the sled clutched tightly in his hands. "On the count of three?"_

_With a nod, Tucker positioned his sled. "One. Two. Three!" _

_The two boys raced forwards, their feet flying, their sleds slamming into the snow in unison, double yells of triumph ripping from their throats. They hadn't even made it to their first set of jumps – Danny pulling a slight lead – when the sound of the first gunshot rang through the air._

The ghost tipped back in her chair for a moment, chuckling. "It's not funny, I know it's not, but that's just horrible. Think about all the little children, there to play, and _this_ to happen? Evil."

She leaned forwards, rereading her last paragraph with a glint in her eye. "Buckle your seatbelts and hang onto your hats. This is going to be interesting." She set the pencil to her paper. "And remember to add some emotions," she mumbled.

_Danny tumbled out of his sled without a second thought, his eyes already scanning the area. Scrambling kids and families met his eyes – one limp body lying on the bottom of the hill – sleds and happy times instantly forgotten. Another shot echoed through the air, echoing slightly even as one of the running kids faltered and collapsed to the ground, and Danny's gaze trained on the girl in the red jacket he'd been standing next to only minutes before._

_She was standing perfectly still, a simple handgun held in an outstretched arm. Without any expression on her face, she sighted down the barrel and pulled the trigger. Bang. A new, pain-filled scream joined the cacophony of sound on the hill. Cold, calculated, aimed destruction._

_He never even stopped to think about the consequences. The twin limp forms of the kids at the bottom of the hill were all he could think about. Terror raced through him, hard on the heels of his ghost transformation, adrenaline flowing through his veins. He'd fought the worst the Ghost Zone could throw at him and faced down the most dangerous spirits of the afterlife, but nobody had ever been truly hurt before. _

_These people… they might be dead. The horrible realization curled in his stomach painfully._

_"Danny, NO!" Tucker hissed, grabbing at him, but Danny was gone. He was in the air, safe from the bullets with a hint of intangibility, his every thought on how to stop this._

_Bang. _

The ghostly author had a vague frown on her face as she wrote, slightly disquieted by the pictures in her head. She could _see_ the forms of the kids on the hill, smell the iron tang of the bloody stains on the snow, hear the screams of panic and terror coming from the kids. But her pencil never stopped its quiet scratching on the page.

She was possessed by this point. The story was telling itself, the plot unraveling as she loosed her characters to act as they pleased. She had no more control over the course of the actions than Danny did as his sled sped down a snow-covered hill.

_Bang._

_Danny was behind her then, his fingers reaching out to grab the gun. "Stop!" he screamed._

_She jerked the gun out of his tenuous grasp, twisting around to point the gun at him. "Go to Hell," she said coldly, pulling the trigger. _

_Danny felt the bullet tear pointlessly through his intangible body, the sound unimaginably loud. He didn't stop to think about the fact that he'd just been shot – he couldn't afford to allow his brain to comprehend that. Even as surprised shock registered on the girl's face, Danny jumped her, slamming her backwards into the snow._

"It's not enough," she whispered, tapping the pencil on the page for a moment. "It's not enough. It's too disconnected from the main character." Her forehead furrowed as she continued to write. "Needs to be closer…"

_The girl in the red jacket rolled, cursing softly as she struggled to keep hold of her handgun. Whether or not she'd figured out he was a ghost Danny didn't know, but she seemed crazed by this point. Another roll got her onto her stomach, her arms outstretched, the gun pointing wildly. Danny watched her finger squeeze on the trigger as if it was happening in slow motion, another bullet ripping through the air in the general direction of the rest of the people. _

_"No," Danny hissed, scrambling forwards to jerk her gun towards the sky, unable to take the time to see if the stray bullet had caught someone. _

_A solid knee to his stomach drove the air out of his lungs and Danny lost his grip on the barrel of the gun. She kicked at him, knocking him to the side long enough to get to her knees and point the gun towards one of the few people still visible on the hill._

_Tucker._

"No." She shook her head. "Don't go there. I'm not killing Tucker – that's too cliché by this point." She glared down at the pencil like it could hear her, then set it back down and let the story continue to weave.

_Danny tackled her before she could shoot, plowing her into the snow. She screamed in fury – the first real sign of emotion to cross her face – and pushed against him. The butt of the gun flew through the air aimed for Danny's head, but it passed right through him. Angry brown eyes met terrified green eyes. "Get off of me!" she shouted at him._

_Danny's fingers found the gun again, yanking on it. He was beyond words, unable to tell her what to do, resorting to simply pulling on the weapon until he'd gotten possession of it. He wasn't thinking like a hero anymore. The thought of getting the gun to prevent her from shooting someone had drowned under the pure fear blazing through his veins._

_All Danny knew is that he wanted the gun. For that moment in time, he had no real clue why. He just had to have it._

_The girl's fingers tightened around the gun as Danny yanked, the timing of their pulls in opposite directions depressing the gun's trigger._

_Bang._

_Blood splattered as the handgun's last bullet found its target._

She clicked her tongue against her teeth. "Blood, blood, whose blood should it be? This is angst; at least it was supposed to be, so the solution is obvious. You can't kill off the main character and still have a good piece of angst." She hesitated for a moment, closing her eyes to picture the expression on Danny's face as the girl's warm blood sprayed against his face. "I wonder how that would feel."

Her pencil touched the paper. "That'll traumatize the poor ghost forever. The bigger the trauma the better, right? And remember, describe, describe, describe." Then she winced as she pictured what was coming. "But not too much."

_Danny screamed as a hole formed in the head of the girl he'd been grappling with. One small, dark hole in her chin where the wayward bullet had entered, an impossibly large hole on her forehead where the bullet had exited. The girl's blood that had splashed onto his face seemed to burn as he backpedaled, completely forgetting how to fly, his eyes watching as the girl's dead body slumped to the ground. _

_He had been looking straight into her eyes when she died. He had seen the flicker of surprise just before her life disintegrated and fled._

_Two hands grabbed at his shoulders and Danny spun around, his breath catching in his throat and a yell of surprise in his throat. The man standing behind him put his hands up for a moment in peace, then slipped past the young ghost to check the girl lying on the ground. "It's okay, she's dead," the man said softly. _

_Danny stared at him uncomprehendingly for a long moment. People were moving around them, adults clustering around the fallen forms of the victims, parents and friends holding children close to them. Lights were beginning to flash, sirens sounding in the distance. _

_The man knelt down in front of him. "Phantom? Are you okay?"_

_Images of the girl's death flashed through his mind. She'd been a crazy murderer, intent on killing a bunch of innocent people, but… Danny didn't answer, which the man seemed to take as an answer all the same. The world seemed to be growing a little dim and dark around the edges. Danny was only distantly aware of the fact that he was breathing far too fast to be healthy._

"Let's cue the classic overreaction to something so horrible that nobody should have to go through it – much less a fourteen-year-old." The author could barely stop writing long enough to decide what came next. Her pencil was flying across the page.

_"Danny!" Two faces swam into view in front of him. "Danny?" A cold cloth brushed against his face, smearing some of the blood splatters. "Danny, are you okay?"_

_Danny had no comprehension of when he had lost his ghost form. He hadn't heard the gasp of surprise from some of the people around him. His brain was shutting down, his body struggling to gain control of itself. _

_"Breathe slower, kid," came a commanding voice. "Slow down. Breathe with me. In." It was an eternity and a half before the voice told him to breathe out again. "Out. In. Out."_

_Danny did his best to breathe with the voice, his mind too far gone to do anything to struggle against the command in the voice. Slowly, the world started to swim back into focus, his shaking body starting to regain some sense of power. He blinked at the man sitting in front of him, wondering distantly how a paramedic had gotten there so fast._

_"You're doing great, Danny," the man said, a grin on his face. He had Danny's wrist held firmly in his grip and seemed to be counting to himself. "Keep breathing for me." Nodding, Danny tried to look around, but the man shook his head. "Look at me for a little bit longer, kid. You were hyperventilating."_

_"She shot me," Danny whispered distantly, as if to justify his reaction. Concern flickered in the paramedic's face and Danny felt his other hand getting squished. Danny glanced down at his hand, then up at the amethyst-eyed girl holding his hand. "I'm okay though," he added after a moment, feeling his breath hitch in his throat._

_"Breathe nice and slow, even if you're okay," the paramedic reminded him softly. "I'm worried about you going into shock."_

_Danny found that hard to believe. He was Danny Phantom, wasn't he? He'd fought against the entirety of the afterlife… this was nothing compared to that, right? There wasn't any reason for him to go into shock. His hands, which wouldn't stop trembling, and the cold feeling that was pervading the very core of his body said otherwise, however._

_"We're going to give you a ride to the hospital and get you checked out, okay?"_

"This doesn't fit far enough into the angst category," the author grumbled, contemplating (just for a moment) deleting the whole thing and starting over. "It's a horror story with a bit of angst for a dressing."

She glared down at the pages of words that had been messily scrawled across the white surfaces. "How can I fix this, beyond starting over?"

"Emotions cure all wounds," she murmured. "Emotions…" Rereading what she had written, she tapped her pencil against her lips. "I wonder…"

_Danny was more carried to an ambulance than walked to it, Sam and Tucker clamoring in beside him. Sam regained her firm grip on his hand. "You'll be okay," she repeated over and over._

_"I'm okay," Danny said, struggling to form a smile on his face and knowing that it failed horribly. "See?"_

_Neither of his friends were convinced. "I've never seen you lose it like that," Sam said softly. "When that gun went off I thought she'd shot you…" Tears appeared in Sam's eyes, but she blinked them away. "The way you were screaming…"_

_The paramedic reappeared as the ambulance came to life and started down the street towards the hospital. After Danny's coat was removed a warm blanket was firmly wrapped around him. Lights were shined in his eyes, his temperature and blood pressure were taken, and he was asked a whole list of questions. "Your parents will meet you at the hospital as soon as they can," the man – his name was Eric, so said the name tag – said._

_Danny nodded dully in response, one hand holding the blanket tightly around him and the other not giving up its grip on Sam. _

_"That was very brave of you, Danny," Eric said softly. "You probably saved quite a few lives."_

_Danny felt his stomach lurch as a picture of the dead girl's face swam through his mind, her dying eyes full of the shock of shooting herself. He swallowed heavily and looked down at his hand clenched in Sam's. He fought to keep the tears in his eyes from overflowing and slipping down his face. _

_She was a murderer. Why did he feel so horrible about her life being over? She had tried to kill him and a bunch of other innocent people!_

_His body shuddered and his fingers spasmed as a sudden sob made its way out of his body. For a long few moments, he held back the emotions struggling to find a crack in his armor, but as the ambulance pulled into the hospital, he lost the fight. Tears curled down his face and dripped onto the blanket. _

_Sam pulled him into a tight hug, not knowing what else she could do to help him. Tucker sat quietly beside them, watching his friend start to deal with the fact that he'd just seen someone die from inches away. "It'll be okay," Tucker said distantly, but he wasn't sure himself._

"Okay, okay," the ghost muttered, running her hands through her hair. "Now for a conclusion. This is getting long enough. Something to wrap it all up while leaving my readers demanding more. What would be a good thing to have happen next?"

She hesitated, staring down at the pages of scrawled handwriting, tipping her head to the side. "I could do all sorts of evil things… but I need something conclusive. Something... parental."

_The ambulance came to a stop, the back doors pulled open, and a few shouted voices echoing into the small space. Danny wiped at his eyes and looked up just in time to see a large man in an orange jumpsuit practically push the paramedic out of the way and climb into the ambulance. "Danny!"_

_He was wrapped up in a tight hug almost before Sam and Tucker could move out of the way, the paramedic Eric already trying to get Jack Fenton back out of the ambulance. Danny didn't pay any attention to the flustered paramedic, instead allowing himself to feel the comfort and safety of his father's arms. "You beat the ambulance to the hospital," Danny said, swallowing heavily and swiping at a tear that had escaped his eyes._

_"Nobody stands between me and my family," Jack said fiercely. "Nobody."_

_Danny couldn't help the small smile as he climbed out the ambulance to be swept up by his mother. Distantly, he heard the shouts of parents yelling for their children, the calls of police officers and hospital staff trying to direct people to the right places, the loud siren as an ambulance pulled up to the emergency room._

_For a few moments, Danny let the terror of the past half-hour melt away. The images of the dead girl, the feel of the gun going off in his hand, the horror of being shot at, the pictures of the dying bodies on the hill… It would be back – he had no doubt that in the middle of the night it would be slipping back into his mind – but for now, he let it all go. _

_"My little hero," his mother whispered. _

The ghost sighed, sitting back in her chair and dropping the pencil to the table. "Good enough. I hope the Ghostwriter chokes on his own tears." Grabbing the stack of pages – a respectable nine pages of finished work in only three hours – she stuck them in an old envelope and scribbled the Ghostwriter's name on top before tossing the envelope by the door to deliver later. Staring down at the envelope, a small grin appeared on her face. "I wonder what he wrote for me…"

* * *

Uploaded April 5, 2009  
Angst in limerick... _NEVER_!  
Thanks for reading!


	27. Frozen Time

_My computer was wiped and my OS reinstalled yesterday. I'm going through my old files as I'm reinstalling them and found this one_. _I think I stuck it up on dA, but I know it's not on here. A bit of Dani-torture for you._

_

* * *

_**Frozen Time  
**A Danny Phantom FanFic by Cordria

* * *

"Time out."

Danielle laughed, twirling the old man's staff a few times in her fingers, grinning into his startled and frozen expression. "Now who's smarter, Clockwork?" she chuckled. "Didn't even see it coming, huh?"

Shaking her head a few times, she turned to examine the staff, its clockwork hands frozen in place. "Now how do I start time again?" It should have been rather easy – Danielle had seen her guardian and mentor do it a million times. Press the button, mutter the stupid catch phrase, and viola: time stream moving as normal.

Only, this time she couldn't find the button. She studied the staff from every angle, running her fingers over the details. "Where is…" She wasn't overly worried about the fact that she couldn't find the right button to press. It wasn't like she didn't have all the time in the universe to get it right.

After a few minutes of searching, she shrugged and leaned the staff against the frozen master of time, taking a small step backwards to grin at him. "I'll be back in a few, okay? I'm going to go find something to eat." As she headed towards the small kitchen, she figured it was all his fault that she was starving anyways. He'd kept her from dinner for hours with his endless lectures.

Besides, it would serve him right to stay frozen for a few hours. All's fair in the Ghost Zone – especially when one was dealing with a Phantom.

--

She was about half-way through eating her sandwich when she felt a small breeze brush against the back of her neck. Shivering, she glanced over her shoulder, her green eyes racking the timeless, dusty hallways of her mentor's lair. She didn't see anything. "Freaky," she mumbled, her voice echoing a little. "Even with time stopped, this place is creepy."

Something hissed at her and her head whipped around. There was something sitting on the table, studying her with glowing red eyes. "Hey!" she yelped, pushing back away from the table and sending her chair clattering to the floor.

The monkey-like creature crawled forwards on all fours, its arms splayed out like a reptile's, its body fogging and misting like evaporating shadows, its form vibrating and hard to keep track of. The red eyes were the only things that stayed still long enough for Dani to comprehend what she was staring at. It hissed again, fiery flames oozing from its mouth and dripping onto the table like glowing rubies.

"Back off!" Danielle said, raising a hand and forming a ball of energy on her palm.

Either the creature didn't notice or it didn't care. It scuttled a few more feet closer, reaching out with a double-elbowed arm to prod her half-eaten sandwich and sniff at it. "Asstaff," it hissed, "mallreth alesst."

"Yeah, like I know what that means," she muttered. "Leave my food alone or I'm going to blast you."

"Timess hallvereth nansh, asstaff," the creature said softly, flames dropping from its mouth to burn the remains of her sandwich. An odd sharp tang accompanied the smell of burnt bread as the creature moved forwards to perch on the edge of the table, pointing a long clawed finger in her direction. "Alesst."

Dani took a small step backwards, keeping the energy ball pointed towards the strange being. "How come you're not frozen like everyone else?" she asked, knowing that the creature wouldn't be able to answer her but unable to keep herself from asking. She didn't know what this things was – it surely wasn't a ghost or any kind of spirit she'd ever run into before.

The creature chuckled darkly. "Timess deamoness," it hissed. Red eyes glittering excitedly, the creature crouched low, its long claws digging into the table. Then, in a horrible parody of the ghost master of time, it whispered, "time out." Just as Danielle's eyes widened in surprise, the creature leapt at her.

She yelped in surprise, ducking backwards and turning the energy in her hand into a shield. The creature – the time deamon – skidded off the solid energy and flew over her head. Danielle twirled around in time to see the deamon hit the ground and roll a few times before clamoring to its hands and feet. "Stay away!" she screamed, throwing a ball of energy towards it.

The deamon slipped to the side soundlessly and stared at her, its body constantly moving, a long tail forming behind it and slashing from side to side. "Asstaff," it snarled. Then it turned and ran, its body moving almost too quickly for Danielle's eyes to follow.

Danielle held perfectly still for a long moment, her green eyes wide and her breath catching in her throat. "What the…" She trailed off as an image of her mentor – frozen and vulnerable – flickered into her mind. "Clockwork!"

Her feet were moving almost before her mind had finished telling them what to do. Hallways flashed by on either side as she ran, now and then seeing places where the deamon's claws had dug into the hard ground. Flames licked at the walls in a few places, a scorched clock in a corner almost slashed in half. Picking up the pace, her feet left the ground, swirling around turns and down the long hallways faster than she had ever gone before.

She reached the chamber where her frozen mentor was waiting only a few moments behind the creature. She screamed as it dug its claws into the ground to stop its headlong flight, the screeching sound making her ears hurt. "Timess halvereth," the deamon hissed, snatching the time master's staff from where it had rested with its tail.

"NO!" Danielle screamed, throwing a ball of energy towards the creature. It sidestepped, the attack missing by a few purposeful inches. Again and again she pulled energy to her hands and threw it into the air. Each and every time, the creature would move just enough for her attacks to miss. It was like shadowboxing. Every move Dani made, the deamon countered perfectly.

"Allveren nasshret alesst," it jeered, spitting a handful of its fiery saliva into its hand. Mounding it up like a snowball made of lava, the creature tossed it at the unmoving Clockwork, hissing in satisfaction when the ghost's long cloak caught fire. "Ssatesh."

When the deamon raced out of the room, the time master's staff held firmly in its tail, Danielle raced forwards to jerk the cloak off her mentor. Coughing in the acrid smoke, she sank to her heels, gasping and staring around the room in panic. What was that thing? Why was it here? Why could it move when everything was supposed to be frozen?

What had started out as a joke and a fun way to get back at Clockwork for the hours of lecture and torment had turned into something that wasn't looking like it was going to be very fun at all. Danielle got to her feet and stared into the unmoving face of the older ghost, almost like she was trying to get him to tell her what to do first. She waited for a long moment, half-convinced that if she stood still long enough, Clockwork would move.

He didn't, much to her frustration. Finally, she turned away and stalked out of the room, following the destruction the time deamon had left in its wake. She needed to get the staff back and get time restarted before anything horrible happened. Who knew what could happen if the creature figured out how to control Clockwork's staff.

Back in the chamber, Clockwork's eyes closed and a short, suffering sigh escaped his lips. One small gesture repaired the clock the deamon had destroyed (it had been one of his favorite, after all), and he shot a sad glance towards his destroyed cloak. That had been his cloak for the past few centuries – now it seemed like he'd need to find a new one. Then, keeping one eye on his errant apprentice, Clockwork went back to being 'frozen'.

Elsewhere, the deamon slipped through the portal into Amity Park, flames dripping from its shadowy mouth as it waltzed past the frozen forms of the Fenton Family, up the stairs, and out into the afternoon sunshine. "Na fferenesh ah minirith!" it screamed in triumph.

_The world is mine._

_

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_Uploaded June 7, 2009  
Creatures that exist solely outside of time... evil.  
Thanks for reading!


	28. Undercover Agent

_The blame for this falls SQUARELY on the shoulders of Nylah (foremost), Aytheria (second-most), and Chaosdragon (also second-most). I hold no responsibility for this – NOT ONE LITTLE BIT. And my experience with the new character equates to reading three short fanfics, so watch out for OOCness._

* * *

**Undercover Agent**  
A Danny Phantom/Alex Rider Fanfic by Cordria

* * *

The blond-haired boy was sitting in a chair in the main office of the Royal & General, staring at the director in a state of shock. "You want me to _what?_"

Alan Blunt leaned forwards with a small sigh and rested his arms on his desk. "I know it's a little insane, Alex, but they're calling in a favor and I can't say no."

"You want me to spy on a… ghost?"

Blunt nodded, his eyes serious. "It's apparently been terrorizing a good portion of population and the government can't track it down. They have reason to believe that some of the teenagers at the local schools know something about the ghost's motives and whereabouts, but they haven't been able to get any of them to talk."

Alex shook his head, blinking. "Teenagers… thus me."

"Thus you." Blunt pushed a file across the desk. "Your plane leaves tomorrow morning, Alex 'Hunter', and you've already been enrolled in the local school – Casper High, I believe it's called. We've also set you up to stay with a foster family while you're there."

"Great," Alex drolled, picking up the folder, "ghosts and foster families."

"Enjoy America."

Alex muttered something dark under his breath as he slipped out of the office, folder under his arm, to track down Smithers. Perhaps the man would have some sort of gadgets for finding ghosts. Grinning to himself, though, Alex highly doubted it. There was no such thing as ghosts.

* * *

Valerie Grey stood with her father at the airport, shifting uncomfortably. She hated the idea of boarding some strange British kid for a month, but it wasn't like she'd had a lot of say in the matter. Her father had put his foot down and there was no way Valerie was going to put up the argument about a foster kid eating into her ghost hunting time. Especially since she wasn't supposed to be ghost hunting at all at the moment.

"Smile, Val," Damon Grey said with a sigh. "You're going to scare him."

She put on the freakiest, fakest smile she could dredge up. "Better?"

"You're not getting your way with this, so you might as well be happy about it. He's supposedly a really nice boy – I'm sure you'll like him."

"What's there to like?" she muttered to herself, not intending anyone else to have heard it.

"He's a Second Dan in karate," his father mentioned just as the doors opened and people started to file out of the plane. "And since you're in such a good mood, hold this." He handed her the sign that read _Alex Hunter_, smiling a bit at her flustered and embarrassed expression.

_Second Dan_? Val thought, reassessing her mental picture of a weak, geeky teenager with buck teeth to something a bit more normal. _Maybe I could talk him into sparing with me_. Her smile fading into something a bit more normal, Val studied the people walking through the doors into the terminal. The vast majority of them were older folks with rolling, brightly-colored cases.

"I heard he's interested in ghosts too," Damon said softly, fighting down a chuckle as the last barriers to his daughter's defenses crumbled and a tentative but real smile appeared on her face. "You two probably have a lot in common."

Both of them completely overlooked the fair-haired teenager until he was standing in front of them, awkwardly shuffling his suitcase from one hand to the other. "Mr. Grey?" he asked, his voice carrying a bit of a tremor underneath his British accent. "I'm Alex Hunter."

Val was still studying him when Alex's brown eyes flickered in her direction, expertly sizing her up in a second. His eyes narrowed a little, the look hard and professional, but the innocent and slightly scared expression on his face never shifted. "Nice to meet you," her father was saying, shaking the boy's hand. "This is my daughter, Valerie."

"Hello," Val said, reaching out to shake his hand as well, feeling the calluses on his hand. "Call me Val though."

"Hello, Val." His grin was disarming when he finally released her hand. "I've been looking forwards to this for a long time. I really appreciate the fact that you two were willing to take me in when the family I'd planned to stay with suddenly had to move."

"Oh, it's no problem at all. We were more than happy to do it," Damon said. "The car's this way."

Val watched Alex walk next to her father, shaking her head a little at the teenager's smooth and coordinated movements. He was definitely going to be someone that would be fun to fight. Maybe, if he really was interested in ghosts like her father had mentioned, she could even talk him into a ghost hunt or two.

She could picture it in her mind as she stepped out into the sunshine. If she could talk him into ghost hunting and he really was as good at martial arts as her father had claimed, the ghosts wouldn't stand a chance. They might even be able to take out Phantom. _This foster thing might actually be fun_.

* * *

Alex sighed to himself as he followed his temporary foster family into a disheveled and dirty-looking restaurant known as the Nasty Burger. Both of the Greys had been quick to reassure him that the name was more of a joke than anything else and that the food was actually really good. Despite the dubious title of the restaurant, Alex hadn't been able to turn down the offer of food. Eight hours of jet lag and a half-eaten airline meal had left him starving for supper, his stomach not agreeing with the fact that his watch was telling him it was only eleven in the morning.

"Come on, let's go find a seat," Valerie said. "My dad will get us something to eat."

He allowed himself to be dragged off to a seat in the corner of the place, his eyes scanning for anyone that looked familiar. There really wasn't any reason to believe that someone would have followed him half-way across the world, but Alex knew better than to take chances. "This place is –"

"I work here," she interrupted with an evil gleam in her eye. "Before you insult it, I just wanted you to know that."

"- Interesting," Alex finished without skipping a beat. "I like the random collection of tables."

Valerie laughed a little. "Yeah, the ghosts break a lot of stuff and the manager gave up trying to keep getting tables and chairs that all looked the same."

Alex blinked at her in surprise. "The ghosts break things?" _Are these people serious about this ghost thing? _

"All the time," she said, shaking her head dismally. "They're annoying and really should be taken care of, if you know what I mean. But the government is too stupid to handle it."

"You know much about ghosts?" Alex asked after a moment, putting a little nervousness into his voice and forcing a flush to his face. "They're kind of the reason I chose to come here."

She seemed to preen a little, brushing her hair over her shoulder. "Of course I do. I'm an expert in ghosts and ghost hunting."

"That's excellent." Alex smiled at her as Mr. Grey appeared and set a tray of fast food down in front of him. "Thanks."

"No problem," Damon said. "We'll snag a bite to eat and then finish our tour. Get you moved into our apartment."

Alex half-listened as the two of them fell back into their 'tour guide' mode, telling him all about the history of their little city. It wasn't anything Alex hadn't read on the plane trip and he allowed most of it to pass right through his mind, more intent on eating his meal and keeping track of who was coming in through the front doors.

The Greys seemed to be exactly how they'd been portrayed in the file, which was a comfort. Damon Grey was open and honest with a quick smile and a happy personality. Valerie was brash, judgmental, and stubborn, and she was definitely hiding something from him. While both seemed to be sharp and competent at defending themselves, neither were likely to see through his cover and be an issue with his mission.

"I've read," he said when they'd finally rattled down and were at a loss as to what to say next, "about this one really famous ghost in Amity Park. Danny Phantom?" Valerie tensed at the name, her father shooting her a warning glance. _That's interesting_, Alex thought, cataloging the reaction for later. "Can you tell me something about him?"

"He's a menace," Valerie spat. "He destroys everything he touches and ruins lives and he thinks he's so smart."

Damon reached over and touched her shoulder. "In some people's opinions. Other people think he's something of a hero, protecting us from the rest of the ghosts."

Alex fixed the most innocent expression he could find on his face and smiled at Mr. Grey. "Do you think I'll run into him while I'm here?"

"I'm sure you will." Valerie closed her eyes and relaxed a little. "He messes with just about everything and he seems to enjoy tormenting the school."

_These people are really serious_, Alex thought, letting his eyes drift around the Nasty Burger. _They really believe that there's a ghost here doing all these things. I wonder if they might really be on to something or if they're all just nuts._

The hairs on the back of his neck rose and Alex's eyes fixed on the door to the restaurant. Three people were walking in – three teenagers that Alex recognized from the file he'd been given from the Guys in White. Daniel Fenton, Samantha Manson, and Tucker Foley had been labeled as 'people of interest' in the government's case against the local poltergeist, to the point where they'd even gotten their own pictures in the file. Alex's job was to cozy up to the trio and see what he could get out of them.

Alex would have grinned, feeling the first tendrils of the addictive adrenaline rush of his spy mission begin, but the boy named Daniel looked at him right then. Brown eyes met blue across the Nasty Burger. The two surveyed each other for a moment before Daniel turned to follow his friends to the front counter.

_This is getting more interesting by the second_. Alex forced himself to focus back on his foster family, smiling and nodding at something Mr. Grey had just said, but his mind was elsewhere. The file on Daniel 'Danny' Fenton had labeled him as clumsy, oblivious, and nervous, but generally friendly.

Deep down, Alex knew that the government's file was dead wrong. Danny was going to be trouble.

_

* * *

_Uploaded June 10, 2009  
I just wanted to keep writing...  
Thanks for reading!


	29. Hostage

_Fluffy angst? Is it possible? Locked in a room against your will has to surely lead to angst… but if you add in just enough humor to make it funny? Fluffy angst?_

* * *

**Hostage**  
A Danny Phantom Fanfiction by Cordria

* * *

_'Run and I will kill them. _

_Argue and I will hurt them. _

_Stay and be mine – like we were meant to be – and you'll see them again. _

_Someday.'_

_

* * *

  
_

I sat down on the soft bed, glaring at the expensive mahogany bedroom door; tired of the back and forth pacing I'd been doing for the past two hours. Priceless antiques surrounded me, but I didn't pay them any mind. The door was now the object of my sole attention.

It was shut – not locked, it never would be locked he had said – but it was definitely _shut_. It didn't have to be locked to keep me inside now; just shutting it would prevent me from leaving. I could get up and leave any moment I wanted. He wasn't forcing me to stay, so he said.

My glare darkened. It wasn't really the bedroom door that was bothering me. _That_ particular door I could walk through any time I wanted. The problem was that door that I _wanted_ to get through – running as fast as I could and never looking back – was just as shut.

And just as unlocked.

And just as impossible to get through.

Really, to tell the truth, I wasn't glowering at the doors. The doors were just doing what they needed to do and you couldn't really blame them for it. They were just being a helpful stand-in for the _real_ thing I wanted to stare at, but didn't quite dare.

_Vladimir. Masters._

For almost two hours now I'd been condemning that evil man in my head. Kidnap me from my own house… that was bad enough. I was strong, independent, and powerful; I could protect myself from him.

But to take one of my precious children hostage and hold their life over my head… Tears burned in my eyes as I thought about either Danny or Jazz being locked away in some dark room, terrified, not knowing what was going on. They were tears of pain, tears of rage, tears of helplessness. I didn't know where my child was, I didn't know how they were feeling, and I didn't have any idea how to rescue them.

The only thing I could do was listen to that man's words and follow along. It stung, deep down inside, that the best I could do to protect my child was to keep my head down and act subservient. It went against my very nature, all of my morals. It was the insult to add onto the injury.

A knock at the door startled me out of my thoughts and I narrowed my eyes in fury. I knew who was on the other side of the door that I refused to open. Vlad could hold me here against my will, but I would follow none of his desires without a direct order. He could open the cruddy door all on his own.

There was another knock, followed by a soft, "Um…" The boyish voice that accompanied the knock made me blink in surprise, breaking my death glare. That hadn't been Vlad. But who else was here at this house? Vlad… me… and my child. _Danny!_

I pushed myself to my feet and scrambled for the door as the voice continued. "Maddie?" Hesitating when I grabbed the doorknob, I closed my eyes for a moment and let a fierce disappointment wash through me. My son wouldn't have used my name; it wasn't Danny.

When I twisted the doorknob and pulled it open, I peeked out to see who it was. Taking a small step backwards, Phantom rubbed a hand through his supernaturally white hair. At least I _thought_ it was Phantom – the young ghost wasn't wearing his normal gear. Instead, it was a strange ensemble of faded jeans, a hole-filled T-shirt, and an obviously new suit jacket with an undone tie. His green eyes – looking almost human in the bright lights of Vlad's mansion – looked at me apologetically. "Sorry, but Vlad wants you to come down for supper."

"Phantom?" I whispered, floored. After months and months of hunting the ghost, I'd started to give in to my son's arguments and think that maybe I had been wrong about him… and here he was working for _Vlad?_

His grin was a bit sheepish as he dropped his hand from his hair. "Hi."

A million and a half questions flooded through my brain, but I couldn't get my mouth to work to ask a single one. Finally I just took a deep breath. "Supper?"

"Yeah." He watched me for a moment, head tipped to the side, concern apparent in his all-too-human eyes. "Coming?"

I wanted to say no – not only was I not hungry, but I couldn't possibly conceive of eating a _meal_ with that half-ghost _thing_ that had turned my life upside down. But I couldn't risk it. My child's life depended on me doing what I was told. "Yes."

* * *

"Maddie, my dear," Vlad said with a grin as I walked into the dining room. "Thank you for coming!"

I gritted my teeth and didn't respond, sending him a teeth-gritted smile and a dark glare that made him blink and take a step back.

"Son," he continued after a moment, watching me closely, "get your mother's chair for her."

That threw me for a loop for a moment, but then Phantom stepped up beside me, sent me a look that I couldn't understand, then nodded and said, "Sure."

The room instantly darkened. Vlad was glowering at Phantom, power crackling in the air around him. "Sure… _what?_"

Phantom hesitated, then sighed. "Sure… _father_." He put a strong emphasis on that word, almost like it tasted bad in his mouth.

The feel of the room didn't improve however. Vlad had fixed Phantom with a gleaming red glare, the whites of his knuckles showing around his clenched fists. "_What. Are. You. Wearing?"_

Looking down at himself – ratted jeans and T-shirt very apparent under the expensive finery – Phantom shot me a side-long grin. "Exactly what you told me to wear, father," he said sweetly, smiling. "A suit jacket and a tie."

"Listen, _son_," Vlad ground out, "you will do what I ask you do to, when I ask you to do it, with none of this facetiousness."

Phantom tipped his head to the side, fixing an obviously fake innocent look on his face. "I'm not sure what that word means, _father_. Can I go look it up?"

"No." Finally the heavy weight in the room lifted as Vlad took a deep breath. "You won't come back," he muttered.

Argument apparently over, Phantom moved forwards and pulled out a chair, gesturing for me to have a seat. I blinked at him, still startled over the sudden change in atmosphere, moving only after he raised a curious eyebrow. As I took my seat, I could have sworn that Phantom winked at me.

This was getting more confusing by the moment. Were the two of them somehow related – father and son? It sure didn't feel like it, not with the sarcastic twist that Phantom put on the word 'father' every time it came out of his mouth. But then again, I knew people who hated their parents with a vengeance… and I really couldn't blame anyone who would hate Vlad.

Phantom took his seat opposite of me, folding his hands in the table and looking around the room. What was the young ghost's agenda? Was he working with Vlad – just trying the older man's patience? Against him? Looking for something else entirely? What kind of trust could I place in the ghost to help me free my child and escape?

I didn't know, but I knew that I had to try to get out of here, and I knew that I would need Phantom's help to pull it off. The problem was that I didn't trust the ghost at all; I'd have to work at faking some sort of truce between us. As the servants appeared, setting our supper in front of us, Phantom glanced over in my direction and arched an eyebrow, a small smile on his face.

I forced myself to smile back.

_

* * *

_Uploaded June 11, 2009  
Did it work? O.o  
Thanks for reading!


	30. Calico Shades

_Old stuff I found when I was cleaning out my files.  
_

* * *

**Calico Shades**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

"Dude… is that a _human?_"

"I think so."

"Why is it _here?_"

"It got in the way."

The two voices were arguing over me, breaking into the silence that was my mind. I couldn't move; all I could do was lay there and let the slightly echoing voices wash over me.

"Yeah, but _why _is it _here?_"

"I thought maybe I killed it."

"_You killed it?!_ And then brought it _here?"_

"I'm not sure if it's dead. It made noises when I tried to move it."

"If it's okay, why didn't you leave it in its own world?"

I was wondering the same thing, deep in the peace of my own mind. There was also the question of where I was, if I wasn't in my own world – but that didn't really concern me. Not yet, anyways.

"Could you do something other than ask questions? Questions make my head hurt."

"I'm not sure the human's okay, Shade. They're supposed to move."

A cold hand brushed against my face. I wanted to reach up and push it away; if it was a ghost, I didn't want it touching me. But I couldn't get my arms to move. I couldn't even get my eyes to open.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. If it's not moving, that's not a good thing."

"Maybe we can get it to move. Poke it with something."

The frozen fingers suddenly stopped their movement and gripped my chin tightly. My stomach squirmed.

"Where did you get it, Shade?"

"What do you mean?"

"_Where_ _did it come from?_"

I wished I could get away from the voice; it had suddenly turned chill and dark. I focused on getting my eyes open.

"Some little town. Amity Park or something. I don't remember the names of those human towns very well."

"This is one of _Phantom's_ humans!"

"Crud. Are you sure?"

"A human from Amity Park? They're on the 'do not touch' list. Phantom's going to kill us for this."

"Only if we survive Dad first. Maybe we can put it back and nobody'll notice."

"We can't just _put it back_! It's not _moving_, Shade."

"I'm still not convinced it _needs_ to move, Calico. Let's just return it. And stop touching it – you might catch a disease or something."

The hand vanished from my face just as I cracked my eyes open. The two young ghosts – one pale boy and a dead-looking girl, both sporting green hair, ripped jeans, and 80's inspired tee shirts – were leaning over me, nose to nose, eyes glowing as they argued over me.

"We need to fix it first. _Then_ we can return it and hope that Phantom doesn't come after us."

"So find something to poke it with and make it move!"

"I'm not going to poke it! You brought it here, _you_ poke it."

I groaned and finally got my hand to move, bringing it up to rub the chill that still remained in my cheek. "Nobody poke me."

Both ghosts turned to gaze at me in surprise. "It's moving, Shade," the girl whispered.

The boy nodded, his wide green eyes studying me carefully. "Back away slowly, Calico. Don't scare it."

"Where am I?" I tried to push myself up onto my elbows, making both of the ghosts back away from me.

"The Ghost Zone," the girl – Calico, apparently – supplied. "Shade brought you here on Dad's bike."

"Ran you over," Shade added, running his hand through to dirty blonde hair. "No hard feelings, right? Dad's bike is a little too big for me."

"You what?" I asked faintly as I looked around. I was lying on a spit of rock and all the sky I could see was an eerie green, punctuated by strange-looking doors.

The boy glanced over the other ghost. "Ran. You. Over," he said slowly. Then he added, in a quiet whisper towards the girl, "I don't think it's very smart."

"You just ran it _over_, Shade. Give it a minute." Calico put her hands on her hips and glared at her brother. "Your driving skills are bad enough to make anyone go a bit crazy."

"Hey. I'd drive better if Dad let me drive his bike."

I tore my eyes off of the floating doors and gazed at the arguing ghosts. "Excuse me…"

"You're too _young_ to drive Dad's bike. If you'd listen to Mom and _wait_, he'd teach you how to drive it."

Clearing my throat, I tried again. "Excuse me."

"I am _not_ too young. The only reason Dad won't let me practice is because Mom makes him sleep on the couch whenever he gives me a lesson."

"_Excuse me!"_

Both the ghosts turned as one to glare at me with identical green eyes. "_What?"_

I sat up, rubbing the back of my head. My skull hurt – I'd probably hit my head on something – and it felt like I'd lost my scrunchie. "Can either of you take me home now?"

Shade blinked. "I'm… not sure that's a good idea."

"Why not?" I gritted my teeth when my hand touched a _very_ sensitive part of my head.

"We get in trouble for going to the human world," Calico answered after a moment. "If we go _back_ to the human world we'll get grounded or something. That's, like, getting in trouble twice."

"But you were just arguing about bringing me back!"

"That was before you woke up." Calico tipped her head to the side. "Now that you're up, you can leave all on your own. We don't have to bring you anywhere."

I looked around; the piece of rock I was one couldn't have been more than twenty feet from side to side and seemed to float in the sky. "Yeah," I said sarcastically, pushing myself to my feet, "I'm just going to _fly_ out of here."

"Sounds like a plan," Shade said, missing my sarcasm as he reached over and grabbed the handlebars of the large motorcycle. He flung a leg over it and the engine roared to life. "C'mon Calico. Later, human."

"But…" I held up a hand, but the girl jumped onto the back of the bike. "I can't _fly!"_ I shouted over the growl of the motorcycle.

Neither ghost seemed to care.

_

* * *

_Uploaded June 12, 2009  
I dunno. :) Kitty and Johnny 13's kids.  
Thanks for reading!


	31. The Ultimate Enemy: Technus Edition

_dA journal fic from yesterday. I wrote it while a little blitzed on tranqs from the surgery I went through yesterday, so beware. Actually edited this morning now that I feel better and the room isn't spinning.  
_

* * *

**The Ultimate Enemy: Technus Edition**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

I dodged to the left as the ghosts shot blasts of semi-congealed ectoplasm towards me. If those things hit me, the ectoplasm would wrap around me like a net and render me unable to escape. Breath was rasping in my throat and sweat was trickling into my eyes as I raced through the battered remains of Amity Park. Crumbling buildings, smashed windows, and dead trees flickered by as I ran towards the relative safety of the outskirts of town. The hope was that the ghosts would stop chasing me if I made it out into the forest.

My feet slipped on the destroyed asphalt and I swore softly, stumbling back to my feet and dodging down a dark alley as a ghost appeared in front of me. I only had one real advantage as a human: in the darkness of the alleys, I was nearly as invisible as the ghosts. Green-garbed ghosts appeared at the end of the alley, glaring down to where I was crouched behind a rusted bin.

"We know you're there," one of the ghosts called, slamming the stick he was carrying into the wall of some forgotten building. "Come out."

My teeth bared as I glared at him, but I didn't move. If they caught me, all they would do was drag me back to the lab and put that chip back in my head. It was only chance and luck that had allowed me to escape, but I was going to capitalize on it. I wasn't going back to that zombie-like state if I could help it.

"Go find her," the ghost ordered, causing a small grin to appear on my face. The ghost didn't want to face me - he obviously remembered just how much damage I had caused being captured the first time. Two humans appeared around the corner of the alley and started towards me, stumbling a little in the scattered trash in the darkness.

I slipped farther into the shadows, my eyes darting from one human to the other. There would be no sympathy from the zombified humans, no matter how much I begged. Being seen or caught by them would mean the end of my little escape attempt just as surely as it would if the ghost managed to get his hands on me. The chips lodged firmly in their minds wouldn't allow them to have any say in the matter.

Unfortunately, I'd chosen a dead-end alley to hide in: there would be no hiding from the humans searching for me, climbing over any of the walls would be get snagged by the flying ghosts, and there were no doors or windows to disappear through. I was well and truly stuck.

My back was pressed firmly against the back wall, my mind still struggling with a way to escape even though it seemed to be impossible. Fingers curled firmly into the brick and I could feel my already-chipped fingernails break further.

"This is pointless," I heard the guard yell and I gritted my teeth, silently agreeing with him. I was only prolonging the inevitable, but I was dead-set on staying free for as long as possible. Every few moments meant a few more seconds of not being a slave to the ghost king.

When one of the human males stepped to within a few feet of me, one head-turn from being able to see me huddled in the shadows, I tensed. If I had to go out, I was going to go out fighting. I shifted onto my toes, ready to pounce the instant he made eye contact and make him work to take me in.

A cold hand suddenly appeared over my mouth, stifling my startled yelp, and felt myself get yanked backwards through the wall. The human started and turned towards me, but the wall solidified between us before I could make out his face. Strong arms curled around me – one still over my mouth, the other around my stomach, pulling me back against a cold body – and held me still.

My eyes widened in panic, struggling against the arms. There was no doubt that it was a ghost that was holding me; a ghost that would drag me back to claim some sort of reward and return me to slavery. I slammed an elbow around, trying to catch the ghost in the side.

"Stop it," the ghost hissed, his voice low. "Do you want us to get caught?"

That made me freeze, confused – surely the ghost wanted to be found to claim his reward? After a moment I shifted slightly, wriggling my shoulders to get him to release me. The ghost seemed to catch on to what I wanted, the arms loosening and the hand falling away from my mouth.

"Stay perfectly silent," he breathed. "They're right outside."

I nodded, knowing he wouldn't be able to see it in the complete darkness of the boarded-up building, but not willing to speak in the small chance that this ghost really wasn't going to turn me in. My breathing sounded loud in the silence and I struggled to slow my gasping for air, trying to figure out what was going on.

There was the possibility of there being sort of rebellion out there, and it was possible that I'd stumbled right into them. I felt a brief flash of relief at the thought. The chances of it being true were slim, but it fit all of the puzzle pieces I'd been given thus far. It would explain why the ghost wasn't interested in being caught and why he'd 'rescued' me.

If I was really rescued. It was also possible that this ghost was simply keeping me for some other reason.

"Why were they chasing you?" The ghost had spoken a little louder. Apparently he had a way of knowing that the other ghosts had moved on to search for me elsewhere.

I turned to look at him, the darkness hiding everything but the green flecks of light in his supernatural eyes. "I escaped."

The eyes moved like he'd cocked his head to the side. "What about the chip?"

"Taken out," I said back, keeping my voice low. My stomach twisted at the thought of telling this ghost the truth, worried that he'd use it against me, but if there was even a small chance that there really was some way to stay free, I couldn't chance a lie. "There was some sort of malfunction and they were fixing it. I worked free of the cell they threw me in and ran."

"Smart." There was a pleased note in his voice. "Just you?"

"Yes."

There was a second of silence, then he said, "You wouldn't mind if I double-checked, would you?"

I hesitated. There was no was on Earth I was going to allow some ghost to control me – even for the split-second it would take for him to check if I was telling the truth. I started to shake my head to tell him that I didn't want him to, but a cold hand touched the back of my neck and the world fizzled around me.

It was over almost as soon as it started, but I couldn't stop the convulsive shiver, pushing away from the ghost. There was a horrible taste filling my mouth, shuddering at the thought of being controlled, sliding along the floor until I ran up against something and was forced to stop.

"Sorry," he whispered. "But I couldn't risk bringing you anywhere until I knew for sure."

Logically, I couldn't blame him. But every cell in my body was screaming in disgust of what had just happened. After all the time I'd been locked away in my own mind by those chips, I hated not being in control of my own actions.

"Let's get out of here."

I stayed where I was. I didn't want to touch him.

"We're going to be found if we stay," he said with a sigh. "We need to get to someplace safe, okay? I'm sorry I did that, but I needed to know. I wasn't going to drag a chipped human to my home. Come on."

My body fought against the logic in that statement. Finally I managed to move, my skin crawling as I reached forwards, catching hold of his arm in the darkness. "Never do that again," I ordered softly.

"Deal," he whispered back, a cold hand wrapping around my waist. A cold tremor fled down my spine and we were airborne, the ghost dragging me invisibly through the roof and off into the evening sky.

* * *

We landed in a small clearing many minutes later, him dropping me the last few inches and allowing me to regain visibility. I saw him shimmer into view, an old red backpack slung over black clothes, simmering green eyes barely visible under too-long white hair, the ghost in front of me looking somewhere around twenty-four years old. He grinned at me, and then froze. "Maddie Fenton?" The words were barely breathed.

I nodded, narrowing my eyes. My gaze flickered back over his clothes, settling on the supernaturally white hair. A sinking feeling settling into my chest, I licked my lips. " Phantom?"

A small smile flickered on his face and he nodded.

"You look… different," I managed.

The sardonic grin on his face matched the look in his emerald eyes. "Ten years of running from everyone does that to a person."

"Ten years?" I gasped. I stared at him in confusion as the smile vanished from his face and he nodded slowly.

"You didn't know?"

Shaking my head, I turned around to look in the direction of the destroyed remains of Amity Park. "It didn't feel that long," I whispered. "It was all like a dream."

"I wish," he snorted. "It'd be great to be able to wake up someday, wouldn't it?" He moved up next to me, looking into the sunset and shifting his backpack. "Come on."

I blinked, pulling my eyes away from the barely-seen town, and watched him walk off. I didn't have the time to freak out about all of this now – I needed to deal with things as they happened. Losing ten years of my life… that I could have a crisis about later. The business of staying free needed to be dealt with first. "You're part of a rebellion?" I asked, catching up to him and forcing my mind to stop thinking about how much time had slipped past.

He shrugged. "As much of a rebellion as there is."

The cryptic response wasn't what I wanted. I took a deep breath and tried again. "How many are there?" If there were enough of the rebels, perhaps I could get some kind of team together to free more people. Maybe even my family.

"Including you and me?"

"Yes…"

"Three."

I stopped. "What?"

"You, me, and Danielle. You're the only human I've met that's not been chipped." He shrugged and looked over his shoulder at me.

"Why haven't you freed anyone else?" The demand was out of my mouth before I really knew what had happened.

He scowled, his expression dark. "You don't think I've tried? Over and over? I can 'free' all the humans I want, but I can't disable the stupid chips Technus put in your brains. As soon as I let them go, they run back to Amity Park."

I ran a hand over my face and into my hair, feeling ten years of uncut growth. I wrinkled my nose, annoyed at the small discomfort of having my hair be so long, and walked along beside him for a few minutes in silence, wrapping my mind around the fact that it was just me that was free. Phantom was tense and obviously frustrated, his eyes glittering in the late-evening shadows.

"You're living out here?"

He flinched at the sound of my voice, but nodded and seemed to try to relax. "The ghosts leave me alone if I stay out here."

"Why were you in Amity Park?" I asked curiously.

He shifted his backpack again. "Had to pick up some supplies," he muttered. "Usually I stay out of town though. The less attention Dani and I get, the better."

It was obvious that the ghost wasn't going to be returning me to the ghost's hands – at least, not in his current mood – and I relaxed a little. "Thanks," I finally said, "for helping me escape."

He snorted and sent me a short smile. "Don't thank me yet, Maddie. Life out here isn't so hot. And knowing what's just on the other side of those trees is a daily depressing thought."

"Can I ask you a question?"

This earned me a small chuckle. "Have you done anything but ask me questions?"

"Why?"

He glanced curiously at me. "Why what? Why help you?"

I had a strong guess as to why he'd freed me. My question encompassed so much more than my own freedom. "Why all of this? Why did the ghosts take over the human world? Why didn't we win this time? I've always wondered – I guess I've been wondering for ten years – and since you're a ghost…"

A small cabin came into view through the trees, but Phantom came to a stop. His eyes were fixed on the ground for a moment, an odd guilty look on his face. "It's kind of my fault," he finally answered. He shot a look at me. "See, I didn't go evil."

With a blink, I tried to process the fact that it was 'kind of' Phantom's fault that this was all happening. I hadn't really gotten up a good head of anger before Phantom continued.

"In the original time line, I went evil and destroyed the Ghost Zone," he muttered. "I kind of became the Pariah of the ghosts before I turned my attention on the human world. But in this time line, that didn't happen. I never destroyed the Ghost Zone." He shrugged uncomfortably and looked away. "Some of the ghosts stepped into the power void I left by not going evil. I guess you could say that the destruction of Amity Park was fate, or destiny, or something. If not me, it was going to be someone else. In this case, a ghost named Technus stepped up."

"I don't believe in fate."

He just shrugged again. "In the original time line Amity Park was on its knees in front of me by this point and I was just about to be overthrown. In this world, Amity Park and the entire ghost zone is again on its knees, but this time in front of Technus. If it's not fate, it's definitely an interesting coincidence."

I stared at him as he started walking again, heading for the cabin, my forehead wrinkled as I tried to process what he'd told me.

"Interesting," he called, turning around with a bit of a grin. "You don't believe in fate, but you apparently have no problem with the idea of evil future selves from other time lines."

I couldn't help the derisive snort as I headed after him. He was right – I hadn't even given those things a second thought. As I walked up to the small cabin, I shook my head, my mind already beginning to plan. If I could talk Phantom into helping me, I had no doubt that I could get a rebellion going. Now that I was free to do what I wanted, I was positive that it would only be a matter of time before the world was once again free.

Nobody messes with a Fenton.

_

* * *

_Uploaded June 13, 2009  
Eeyup. Definitely written on tranqs. XD  
Thanks for reading!


	32. History

_I been gone for a week, sorry for lack of updates. (: This is an old drabble from my dA account, sorry to those who have already read it.  
_

_COOL NOTE: Mirror, Mirror is being continued by You're-Not-So-Big! Check out the link in my profile. It's awesome!!  
_

_'The Ultimate Enemy' short story necessary disclaimer due to my somewhat dubious relationship with Butch Hartman: TUE does not fall into the very few episodes of this show I have seen, nor do I wish to watch this particular episode. Any facts that do not adhere to canon (and there are many) you can blame on this little tidbit. _

* * *

**History**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

Vlad Masters was the talk of the town. He made sure that his 'charitable' donations went to just the right places, his scheduled appearances were before the right people, and that his look was always just right. He was the cool, confident, and perfect businessman. The world was his oyster and he was drowning in pearls.

Right now, however, Vlad was huddled in a corner with half a wish that he'd never been born. His fingers were wrapped tightly around Daniel's arms, holding the boy close to him, and his breath was rasping loudly in his ears. Daniel's breathing was coming in rasps and his feverish body was shivering in unconscious pain, blood soaking through the boy's shirt.

Vlad bowed his head down and rested his forehead on Daniel's head. "Wake up," he whispered, terrified that the boy would die. Vlad knew, logically, that he wasn't really wishing the boy would live because he felt some strong affection towards him – rather, he was afraid of the implications of Daniel's death. Daniel's mind was injured and weak, making him more susceptible and the first to fall, but Vlad knew that he wasn't immune either. It would simply take longer for the effects, and the ultimate conclusion, to work. If Daniel died, Vlad probably wouldn't be far behind.

His head starting to ache from the fever that was starting to claim him, Vlad closed his eyes and listened as the boy took a few more stuttering gasps of air, knowing that everything had gone wrong.

* * *

The boy walking down the street was pretty much ignored by the general populace of Amity Park. The few that bothered to even register that the slight teenager was in their midst did double-takes at the look of dejected misery on the boy's face, but then continued on with their lives without a second thought. An emotionally wrought teenager walking down the street was nothing new in the third most haunted city in the world.

As the boy shuffled slowly past the lot where the Nasty Burger used to stand – only four weeks since the accident that had stolen six precious lives and already they were rebuilding the place – he didn't look up to watch the large pieces of equipment belching black smoke into the air. His black hair dangled loosely in his blue eyes and his hands were stuffed carelessly into his pockets, his eyes trained on the ground just in front of his scuffed-up sneakers. His foot moved carefully, almost unconsciously, as he stepped over a scorched section of the sidewalk, deliberately refusing to step on the darkened surface.

His shadow silently passed over the base of a newly erected statue, the brass plate dedicating the monument and the small park it stood in to the souls that had lost their lives in the accident glinting in the noon sun. But the boy didn't even glance at it. The inscription was carved into his memory like granite already; there was no need to read it again. The only indication he gave to the fact that he knew the statue existed at all was the almost imperceptible increase in his speed as he passed it by.

Somewhere in his mind, he knew that the lunch rush would be starting soon. Even on a Saturday, it would be somewhat busy on this street. The thought made him pause for a moment and actually look up. He didn't especially want to have to deal with the crowds that would form as people wandered around like little ants, searching for a few pathetic bites to eat.

He shook his head fiercely and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before continuing on – only now with a destination in mind. He needed to get off the streets and there was one place practically guaranteed to be empty of people at lunch time: the old museum on Eighth Street. Not that it was a big tourist destination at any time of the day, but the museum had a strict rule about no food or drinks. As a result, people tended to leave when they got hungry.

Picking up his pace slightly as he neared the museum, the teenager was quickly coming to the conclusion that only one thing had really gone right in the past forty-eight hours was the fact that nobody had recognized him… at least, not yet. Not that they really cared about i_him/i_ – not loser Danny Fenton – but they would wonder where his guardian, the illustrious multi-billionaire Vlad Masters, was hiding and how they could fawn over him.

Danny clenched his fingers in his pockets and ground his teeth a little. The man could rot for all he cared. All Vlad possessed was fake sympathy and a slimy smile that held nothing but lies and empty promises. Vlad had i_promised/i_ to help him and to make it better… and what had happened?

The _idiot_ had made it all _worse._

* * *

It took awhile, but Vlad finally managed to get up the strength to move Daniel to one of the tables and cover him with a blanket. His legs were trembling with exhaustion after just that small of a move and his fingers grasped at the edge of the table. "Stupid boy," he panted, staring down at the cause of all this trouble and conveniently ignoring the fact that it had partly his idea too, "and your stupid ideas. Look at the mess you got us in to."

His hand strayed to the boy's forehead to feel the burning fever for a moment before turning and starting to search his destroyed lab for something to try to help bring the fever down. If he could save Daniel's life, surely he would be able to save his own. One hand drifted unconsciously up to his forehead to test how warm he was getting.

"At least the bleeding's slowed," he murmured, glancing back at the boy and the hastily tied bandages around his chest for a moment. The bandages were slick and bright with red blood. "That's a good thing. Now… how to get his temperature down…"

* * *

By the time Danny reached the Eighth Street Museum, the place was already practically deserted. The old man at the front desk reminded him about the no food and drinks policy before going back to his book and ignoring the museum's only guest. Danny nodded absently and disappeared into the darkened depths of the museum.

Somewhere between the display case full of ancient head-hunter memorabilia and the stuffed grizzly bear the first mayor of Amity Park had shot over a hundred years earlier, Danny sank to the ground and pressed his back against the wall. Crossing his arms and resting them on his knees, Danny gazed around the deserted room, his eyes almost glowing in the shadows.

Perhaps, he thought, coming back to Amity Park had been a mistake. After running away from Vlad, Danny really hadn't known where to go. Amity Park had been his first and only idea – and he supposed that it only went to show how stupid he really was. There was nothing in this city for him but bad memories… and it'd be the first place Vlad would look if the old man got up the nerve to come after him.

He sighed darkly and pulled his knees closer to his chest. "Great," he muttered. "The loser Fenton genes strike again."

"Danny?"

Danny jerked a little, looking up, surprised that anyone else would bother to come to the old museum over lunch. His eyes took in the museum-style shirt and the nametag before coming to rest on the new person's face. "Valerie?"

Val rested her broom against the display case of shrunken heads and walked over, a sad smile on her face. "How are you doing?"

With a shrug, Danny tried to smile and failed. "Been better, actually. What are you doing here?"

The young woman opened her mouth, closed it, and then ended up shrugging. "I work here… now."

"Ever since the Nasty Burger blew up, you mean." Danny's voice had a sharp edge that he hadn't meant to be there.

Val winced, but nodded. "Yeah." Silence fell for a few moments as the two teenagers gazed awkwardly at each other. "So… what are you doing here? I thought you moved to Wisconsin?"

"I'm taking a break from him," Danny muttered and looked away, playing with the dirt on the ground. "_I_…" He shrugged, not knowing what to say.

"I think I get it," Val said softly, crouching down. When Danny glanced up at her, his eyebrow arched in disbelief, he saw the sadness in her eyes. "I lost my mom not too long ago, remember."

"But you've still got your dad," Danny said harshly. "And your town, and your home, and your friends…" Tears were burning in his eyes – tears that he wished would have gone away after everything he'd been through – and he brushed at them angrily. "You _don't_ understand." His voice dropped to a broken whisper, "You can't understand."

Val blinked and seemed a little taken aback by the anger in Danny's voice. "It'll get better, Danny," she said after a moment.

"No, it's won't," he whispered. "I made a mistake and now it'll never get better." He crossed his arms and hoped that Valerie would go away and leave him alone. He'd chosen the museum to be _by himself_, not to spill out the emotions that were still dancing too close to the surface. His eyes narrowed at the annoying _human _girl that wasn't getting the message. "_Never._"

* * *

Vlad didn't notice at first when Daniel died. He'd been so busy trying to come up with something to keep them alive that he'd stopped paying attention to the boy's rattled breathing. It wasn't until the room had been silent and still for a number of minutes that Vlad looked up. He didn't stop his work to go over and check to make sure Daniel was dead – the boy either was or he wasn't and Vlad didn't believe he had enough time left to care – but he felt a sharp pain of remorse stab through him. If nothing else, Daniel had been an odd sort of companion in this strange world; a soul that understood what it was like to be like him.

The boy had been smart too, Vlad decided as he twisted together a few wires. It really _had_ been a good and logical plan. Daniel had known that he could separate his two halves and had realized that he could, theoretically anyways, separate into two beings where one would possess all of his pain and torment and the other could move on. Neither of them had given a thought to the fact that creating a being capable of feeling nothing but pain and sorrow wasn't such a wonderful idea.

And neither of them had figured that said creature would turn, attack, and steal Vlad's ghost side before running away. Vlad wondered for the briefest of moments where the newly born ghost could have run off to, but then dismissed it to consider later. Right now, he needed to save his own life. The fever that was racing through his system due to the loss of his ghost side was beginning to spike to dangerous levels.

* * *

"Danny…" Valerie tried, but the young ghost sitting on the floor wasn't listening.

That all-pervasive ache that drilled through his whole being was making his body start to shake. Everything – all of this madness, all of this sadness – it was all his fault. He'd cheated on that _stupid_ test and his whole family had paid the consequences for it. Then he'd come up with an idiot plan to iend the pain/i. And what had happened?

It had all gone wrong and it was _all his fault_.

His eyes squeezed shut, his arms pulling tighter across his chest. Fury at himself warred with incredible misery, racing through his body and chasing around in circles in his mind. Underneath it all, something dark was whispering his name, calling to him, wanting him to take some sort of revenge for what had happened and to soothe his emotions through some sort of misplaced aggression. "It's all my fault," he whispered. "It's all my fault."

"I'm going to call Vlad," Valerie said hesitantly, getting to her feet.

Danny barely heard her, locked in a war with himself. His knuckles were white were they clenched at his arms, the pain unfelt under the onslaught of emotions trying to blanket his mind. "My family is dead," he whispered to the empty room. "Sam is dead. Tucker is dead. Even Lancer's dead."

He _couldn't_ move on. He couldn't get over it. He was a ghost – he was trapped forever, feeling nothing but the pangs of sadness and guilt his family being gone. Ghosts don't move on, ghosts don't get over things. For the rest of eternity, he would feel the loss of everyone just as keenly as he did at this exact moment… and that thought brought a fleeting moment of anger to the front.

"This was a stupid idea," he hissed angrily, his eyes popping open. "There's no way in hell I'm staying like this forever." He could see it clearly in his mind: some day, not too far in the future, his human half having gotten over it and formed new friends and a new family. And he'd still be there, grieving for his dead family, tormented for all of time. It was the epitome of unfair.

Pushing himself to his feet, Danny glared at his reflection in the glass for a moment. Would he be able to convince his human half to accept him back? He wondered what he'd have to give the fruit-loop in order to convince him to _help _again.

A slip of half-forgotten memory drifted through his mind… an image of human Danny curled on the floor, bleeding, and yanking Vlad's ghost out of him. Danny's forehead wrinkled as he tried to place it, but then shook his head. If his human counterpart would have been bleeding, he never would have left. Right?

That was when the faint echo of Val's last words finally spilled into his mind. Shaking his head to dismiss the odd image, he headed after Valerie. "Vlad…"

* * *

Vlad stared at the numbers that were swimming on the screen, trying desperately to double-check his math. It was a little too late, however, to be worrying about the math behind it. The entire room was starting to spin dangerously and Vlad's temperature had hit disastrous levels. Vlad had come up with a theory of sorts, but his mind wasn't in any condition to attempt to piece it all back together again.

He pushed away from the computer, giving it up as a lost cause, and stumbled across the room. He clumsily grabbed at drawers, dumping the carefully organized contents onto the ground in a desperate search for one of the hypodermic needles. Four drawers later, his fingers finally closed around the needle. "Ectoplasm," he murmured dizzily.

Most of him wanted to lie down on the floor and take a nap – and gravity was working its hardest to make sure that happened – but Vlad was having nothing of it. He shuffled his way out of the mess and over to the cabinet full of ectoplasm samples. It took nearly a dozen cross-eyed tries before he got the needle into the vial and collected a few CCs of the precious material.

"Here goes nothing," he whispered, plunging the needle into his arm and sending raw ectoplasm into his veins. He would have desperately wanted to refine the material, _filter _it at least, but time was up. If this didn't work, he would be unconscious in a matter of minutes… dead in an hour.

The chilly substance raced through him, sending a cold shiver down Vlad's back and almost instantly wiping away some of the cobwebs that had been cluttering his mind. He took a shaky breath, letting his legs collapsed under him and send his body sliding to the floor.

A drug addict. A half-smile appeared on Vlad's flushed face as he remembered his silly theory. It had been based on drug addicts. His body was so used to the effects of the ectoplasm in his system that it had overreacted at the sudden and complete disappearance.

His temperature rapidly dropping back towards a more normal level, Vlad scanned his lab with a tired sigh. What a horrible way to spend the day. He was just about to get up and stumble up to his bed when the phone rang.

* * *

"Valerie," Danny said, poking his head around a corner to see his friend standing in a small office-like area, listening to someone on the phone. He leaned against the wall, his arms crossed, fighting down a wave of misery and jealousy at the thought that she might be talking to her father. Anger followed on its heels, bringing with it the thought that it was unfair that she would get to go home to her family tonight and he'd be stuck like this forever.

"No, Vlad," Valerie said, glancing over her shoulder at Danny. "He's right here." She listened for a moment more, then held out the phone. "He wants to talk to you."

Danny hesitated a moment, then untangled his arms and reached out to grab the phone. "Vlad."

"Good evening," Vlad's voice came tiredly over the line as Valerie inched her way out of the room, closing the door behind her.

"You have to undo this," Danny whispered.

"I can't."

"Yes, you can!" Danny's teeth clenched at the idea of being like ithis/i for eternity. Forever on the brink of tears, unable to control his emotions, desperately hoping for a dead family to come back to life. "I'll come back, you can merge me back with Danny-"

"Danny died."

The young ghost broke off his babbling, staring at the phone in disbelief. This was just some kind of trick that Vlad was playing, it had to be. "Vlad…"

Vlad's voice sounded odd… distant and distracted and perhaps a little scared. Danny blinked, the room spinning as Vlad spoke. "You ripped open his stomach, Daniel. That would have been hard to live through on a normal basis – but after having been torn in half, your human counterpart didn't have the ability to survive."

"I… I didn't…"

"I would appreciate the return of my own ghost half, if you don't mind."

Danny vaguely processed the fact that Vlad's normal sarcastic tone was gone, replaced by something bordering on fear, his mind churning around what Vlad had said. There was no way that he had killed Danny; there was just no way. But that vague image of his human half covered in blood refused to disappear from his brain. "Why don't I remember it if it happened?" he asked tonelessly, a dead sensation in his stomach starting to churn.

_I killed my family._

"You merged with my ghost half, Daniel-"

_I killed my friends._

"-no doubt that cause a certain about of mental trauma-"

_I killed my teacher._

"-that resulted in a bit of amnesia."

_I killed myself._

Something dark whispered up from the depths of Danny's mind, echoing and hissing and dripping with sweetness. Torment and sadness ripped apart the last few supports in the young ghost's mind, sending him tumbling head-over-heels into the darkness. Suddenly he remembered everything. The blood on his hands burned red in his mind.

"NO!" he screamed, the phone and a large portion of the small museum office disintegrating around him. The image of Daniel Fenton dissolved away and the ghost took to the air.

* * *

Valerie rushed into the destroyed office, staring at the empty, charred room in horror. "DANNY!" she called, reaching down to her cell phone to dial for help.

The sharp tang of burnt ectoplasm stung her nose and she hesitated. "Ghost," she hissed, tearing from the room and turning on the ghost radar on her wrist. A spark of light burst into life on the small graph as her suit appeared around her. Barely out the doors, her hoverboard hummed to life and she shot into the air.

Almost out of sight, she caught sight of the ghost that she knew had taken her friend. "Phantom." She sped after him, but the ghost vanished.

Danny Fenton was never seen again, no matter how hard she looked.

* * *

Vlad stared at the phone in his hand, listening to the dial tone, then glanced up at the body of his arch enemy lying on the table. "Daniel, what have you done?"

He shivered, then pushed himself to his feet. There would be to time to waste on a nap; a ghost that knew nothing but pain and torment knew where he lived. Sooner or later, it would cross the boy's mind that this was somehow Vlad's fault and he would have Phantom on his doorstep.

A Phantom ruled by pain, haunted by grief, and with his own lax ethical boundaries.

Vlad would have to prepare.

* * *

The young ghost screamed through the air, unknowing about the hunter tailing him and, frankly, not caring. He felt tortured by his own memories as he landed in the park, tears racing down his face. Without a second thought, he pulled his fist back and punched at one of the trees. It exploded in a storm of splinters that rained down around Danny.

"It's my fault," he hissed, twisting around to punch another tree. "And it'll never go away." A third tree crashed to the ground in pieces. Danny spun on his heel and glared at a fourth tree, almost daring it to move to save its fallen comrades.

"I'll never feel any better," he snarled. "I'll never get over this. I'm going to be _stuck like this forever_." He screamed the last few words, attacking the tree furiously, desperate for an outlet for his racing emotions.

He slumped to the ground amidst the destroyed trees. He wasn't feeling any better. In fact, now his hands hurt on top of the all-over ache of his body. It hadn't changed the fact that everyone – including his human half – were gone and not coming back and that it was all his fault.

If he hadn't cheated on that stupid test…

A bit of laughter caught his attention and he stumbled to his feet. There, just beyond the edge of the trees, he saw something move. Walking slowly forwards, he made it to the edge of the thick trees. Looking around one of the thick trees, he watched a little boy laugh and run back to be scooped up by a man that was, no doubt, the boy's father.

"Dad…" Danny whispered, stepping slightly out from behind the tree to see better. He stared at the two humans, jealous rage curling up inside of him. Why was it that young _thing _got a family and he didn't? How in the world was that fair?

With a snarl, Danny raised his hand and pointed it towards the boy and his father. The fact that they were humans – conscious, living, spiritual creatures – didn't cross his mind. All he wanted to do was settled the score.

It _wasn_'_t_ fair and it wasn't going to stay that way.

The blast of energy left his hand, more than enough to consume the two fleshy things that were causing him so much pain. They didn't even get the chance to scream before their bodies were consumed, their skin burned beyond recognition.

He gazed down at the scorched bodies for a moment, not feeling anything but a small sense of triumph. It didn't chase away the pain of his family and friends being dead, but the momentary hurt of seeing the two creatures' love for each other was gone. A scream echoed through the park and Danny glanced up, his sparkling green eyes searching the landscape. More of those _creatures_, those insignificant things that caused him so much pain, were running away from him.

A small smile drifted on his face. Perhaps this would make the pain go away.

And the rest… is history.

_

* * *

_Uploaded June 27, 2009  
Hm...yeah. RL chapter is almost done.  
Thanks for reading!


	33. Secret Keepers: Jack and Jazz

A series detailing the oft-forgotten stories about the people _besides_ Danny who kept just as many secrets, told just as many lies, and deserve just as much credit.

* * *

**Secret Keepers  
– Jack and Jazz –**  
A Danny Phantom FanFic by Cordria

* * *

It's not real secret that I'm closer to my daughter than my son. I love them both - they're my children for crying out loud - but my daughter holds a special spot in my heart. She always has and she always will. She's my little girl. My sweetheart. My Jazzerincess.

She told me everything when she was growing up. Every time Danny acted like a little boy, she would run to me. Not to Mads – to me. Tears on her face, staring up at me with her huge, beautiful eyes, she would tell me the entire story, knowing that I could make it all better. I'd squat down next to her fragile form and wipe the tears from her cheeks and give her a hug and save the world. To independent little Danny I was just Dad – but to my little princess I was Wonder Dad, He Who Could Fix Anything (except spiders), and sometimes Special Secret Keeper And Tea-Party Guest.

It's no real secret that Danny and I have grown apart over the years. He turned into a moody teenager, frustratingly independent, with a secretive and vaguely paranoid personality that I struggled to try to understand. Every time I took a step towards him he took a step back, refusing to allow me to be a part of his life. By contrast, Jazz never pushed me away. She seemed to become more interested in what I was doing, actually helping out on occasion, and strengthened the bond between us.

I suppose there's nothing wrong with having a favorite child. I know Mads favors Danny slightly, so maybe she just balances me out. I stopped feeling guilty about it a while ago and just took it as natural. I knew that Jazz was my little girl and she always would be. She would always love me and I would always be her father and confidant.

Only… then the world fell apart.

It was a Tuesday. I had always figured that the world would end on a Tuesday.

"Danny got into an accident in the lab…"

I was barely listening to Jazz's rambling, frantic explanation. The small weapon was dangling uselessly from my hands, the cold rain drizzling down from the sky and running into my eyes. I let it fall to the mud as I stared at her in complete disbelief.

"…he's not dead; he's not overshadowed or anything. He's Danny. Please, you've got to believe me…"

She was saying that Danny was some sort of living ghost. My eyes trailed to the unconscious form of the specter I'd been hunting for over a year. His white hair was dingy with the mud from the ground, a small trickle of greenish blood curling across his forehead from a cut on his temple, those unnatural green eyes closed.

I believed her instantly, of course. She was my little girl; she was my princess. What she said was obviously nothing less than the truth – even if it didn't make any sense. She'd never lied to me, she always told me everything, and I had no reason to not believe her.

"…you can't capture him." I think tears were running down her face, but I couldn't really tell with the rain. Kneeling down next to where she was huddled over the ghost – Danny – I reached out and brushed the tears from her face in an age-old gesture. "You can't hurt him."

"Of course not," I said certainly, grinning in response to the small smile that appeared on my daughter's face, then glanced up at Mads. She was staring at the three of us with a blank look on her face, white knuckles clenched tightly around her small ectogun. "Let's get him inside and…"

"No."

I blinked at Mad's sharp voice and wrinkled my forehead in confusion. But Jazz had said…

Her eyes were narrowing, the blank look leaving her eyes. "There's no such thing as a half-ghost. That ghost is-"

"Danny," Jazz interrupted furiously. She never moved from her protective spot in front of her brother, her eyes flashing in the evening gloom. "This is Danny and you're not going to hurt him."

Mads raised her gun slightly, aiming it carefully at the ghost. "He's tricking you, Jazz. That's not your brother – that's a ghost," she said, her voice tense and focused. "Move out of the way."

Blinking into the cold drizzle that was rapidly turning into rain, I stared at my wife. Hatred was appearing on her face as she glared down at us, fury appearing in her eyes.

"He's not," Jazz said sharply, angrily. "And I'm not moving. Why won't you believe me?"

I couldn't understand it either – why wouldn't Mads believe her? Jazz had never given us any reason to doubt what she said. My little princess wouldn't know a lie if it hit her in the forehead, not unless she didn't realize she was lying.

My eyes swung around to my little girl, surprise flickering to life. Perhaps the ghost had tricked her, used her, played with her mind – she wouldn't have any idea. Maybe Mads was right…

Mads scowled, her weapon never wavering from where it was pointed. "How long have you believed your brother was some sort of half-ghost, Jazz?" she questioned.

"I'm not possessed," Jazz snapped. "He's not playing with my mind. He didn't even want to tell me, Mom."

"He's an evil ghost."

"No, he's not. He's Danny and he's a hero." Jazz said it with a confidant light shining in her eyes, shifting protectively in front of the ghost.

"I don't have time for this," Mads said angrily. "Get out of the way before the ghost wakes up."

"No. I'm not going to let you hurt him."

Mads and my daughter are more alike than either would admit – they're both stubborn in their own way. Once an idea appeared in their minds, it took more than a little evidence to change it. I knew that neither would be changing their mindset anytime soon.

I let out a small breath and focused down on the unconscious ghost lying on the ground. Those eerie, attention-grabbing eyes closed, I could easily see my son's features on the ghost's face and in the messy set of his muddy hair. Listening to my wife demand that Jazz move and my daughter's sharp refusals, I watched the small trickle of glowing blood travel down my son's face, helped along by the now-steadily falling rain.

It didn't make any sense; a living ghost is nonsense, an idea born of a half-remembered nightmare. There was no way it was possible, I knew that. Maybe Danny was a real ghost. Maybe this ghost had just taken the likeness of my son. Maybe the two were connected somehow. But Jazz had said…

Maybe she was possessed, like Mads had suggested? Maybe she didn't know any better. She was just confused – that had to be it. That could be the only reasonable explanation for why this was happening.

My son shifted slightly in the mud, his eyes opening a tiny bit in the mud. Neither Mads or my daughter noticed; they were too wrapped up in their arguing. His half-closed eyes seemed to focus on us for a moment, taking in the conversation.

"Danny," I said softly. His eyes flickered up to meet mine, those inhuman emerald eyes opening and studying me for a split second. I could see the energy swirling in his irises, coiling around like the mists of the ghost portal. But I could also see something else lurking in them.

Ghosts are dead. I've looked them in the eyes before and every time it sent a shiver down my back. Death stared back from the gaze of a ghost. It's something nobody could describe, yet it's impossible to miss.

Life still flickered in Danny's eyes. He wasn't dead. My Jazzerincess was telling the truth.

A small smile appeared on my face at that, clearing away whatever bits of doubt had sparkled in my mind. Of course Jazz was telling the truth – when had she ever lied to me? She was as honest as the sun was bright.

Danny vanished just then, fading from view so quickly that my eyes could still see him for a moment after he was gone, the rain splashing onto the ground where he had lain.

"Jazz," Mads said sourly, lowering her weapon and sighing now that Danny was gone.

"I'm not letting you hurt him," Jazz said stubbornly, standing up.

"There's just no such thing-" Mads started, but I cut in.

"I believe her." I got to my feet and turned to face them, saying something for the first time during their argument. My eyes settled on the rain-soaked face of my daughter for a moment before glancing down at my wife. Her violet eyes were fixed on me, a startled expression on her face. "She's telling the truth."

Mads's nose wrinkled a little, like it always did when she was trying to think about something she couldn't wrap her mind around. "Jack," she said slowly, "that's impossible."

"Somehow it is," I said, taking a step and scooping my weapon out of the mud. I rubbed it against one of my pant legs for a moment, scowling at the mud that had built up on the barrel. "We'll just have to-"

"It's not." Mads scowled darkly and crossed her arms. "He's gotten to you, too. There's no such thing."

Jazz and I spoke at the same time. "Mom…" "Mads…"

She twirled on her heel and strode into the deep shadows. "My son is not a ghost," she snapped. "I can't believe you're letting him get to you like that, Jack."

"Mads," I said uncertainly, taking a step forwards and touching her arm. She jerked out from under my grasp and stalked away in the darkness, leaving me behind. Twisting around to look at Jazz, I watched her get to her feet and stare out into the rainy gloom.

I shook my head after a moment, turning to follow my wife back towards home. My little princess and I would be able to talk Mads around – it might take a few hours, but she'd get there. She always accepted the evidence eventually. I'd be able to explain it scientifically and Jazz would be able to fill in the background details.

I hesitated, furrowing my forehead as that one thought echoed around in my mind. Jazz would know the background because she had known that Danny was this living ghost thing. She'd known about it for months, apparently, from the way she'd been arguing and some of the things she said. That made sense, she knew that her brother was…

And she hadn't told me.

Rain dripping off my hair and racing into my eyes, I fought against the knowledge that was struggling upwards. Things quietly started to click in my head – the way she'd suddenly become interested in ghosts, how she hung around in the lab asking questions, the way she had gotten closer to me over the past few months, wanting to know about all the inventions. I'd always assumed that she was simply interested, that she loved me, that she wanted to be around me.

I swallowed heavily, betrayal flooding through me as understanding suddenly bloomed. My beloved child. My Jazzerincess… had used me. She lied to me. She had put her brother's life on the line keeping a secret from me. She…

She…

My head came up and turned around to stare at the girl standing in the rain, tears burning in my eyes as I finally started to comprehend just was this meant. Months of lies. Months of manipulating me to do what she wanted. Months of secrets. It struck deep in my heart, shattering something inside of me, tearing apart a piece of me that Danny's startling secret hadn't touched.

The young woman, rain-slicked hair dripping around her shoulders, hazel eyes confidant and proud… she was someone I suddenly didn't recognize. Shadows hung around her and draped over her shoulders. The girl I trusted had, in nothing less than a moment, become someone I didn't understand. How could I possibly know if she were telling me the truth from now on? Would I wonder if there was an ulterior motive to everything she did now?

A sad smile and a depressed snort of laughter drifted out of me as I turned around as started to slowly walk home, still struggling to understand how quickly the world had fallen apart around me. Everything had changed.

I always knew there was a reason I hated Tuesdays.

_

* * *

_Uploaded July 7, 2009  
RIP Michael Jackson. Your songs and world-changing musical style will live on.  
Thanks for reading!


	34. One Two Three

_1, 2, 3 was posted 4:56pm on 7/8/09 for no reason other than for giggles. I think I might have posted this on dA at some point, but I'm not sure and am too lazy to go looking._

* * *

**One Two Three**  
A Danny Phantom Ficfic by Cordria

* * *

Valerie stared down at her list, then glanced over at last year's yearbook, then back at her list to scribble another name on the page. Wrinkling her nose, she absently chewed on the end of her pencil and sighed. She was putting more work into this stupid list than she had put into any of her assignments since fifth grade. And it was still driving her nuts.

After hours of work, she was down to thirty-seven names. Thirty-seven possibilities. She sat back in her chair, only partially satisfied by the results. Thirty-seven wasn't so bad – she'd still have to spy on each and every one of them – but it was lots better than trying to watch _everyone_.

Thirty-seven names… and it had only been a week since the Day That Changed Everything.

Of course, Valerie had a number of days that could qualify for that title – the day Phantom had destroyed her future, the day she'd gotten her first ghost hunting suit, the day she'd gotten her second ghost hunting suit – but she'd chosen Wednesday, July 8th as the official Day That Changed Everything. That was the day she'd found out the big secret.

She wasn't stupid, no matter how her grades looked. It had taken her less than five minutes after she saw Mayor Masters turn into that ghost to figure out the secret. Her first-hand knowledge of the human-ghost-girl and how closely she resembled Phantom did nothing but back up her gut instinct. And the intense rivalry she'd witnessed between Mayor Masters and Phantom solidified it in her mind.

It was so _obvious_ that Phantom was a third human-ghost that it was almost painful. It did hurt, a little, when she thought back over how many times she'd hunted the human-ghost. She didn't want to hurt a human – even if he was some strange human-ghost-boy – she wasn't _that_ mad at him. By this point it was more of a game and a tradition than the all-out war it had been.

The list had been born out of that smidgeon of guilt. She wanted to apologize to him. Not just to Phantom… but to the real boy she'd been hunting. A week after The Day That Changed Everything, she was still trying to figure out just who Phantom was. The question was dogging her, digging into her skin as she slept, faces dancing behind her eyes.

He was about her age, haunted Amity Park… she would have bet her last remaining pair of designer shoes that Phantom went to her school. Figuring he had to look similar in both forms – the girl and Mayor Masters did, anyways – she had managed to whittle down the list from every boy in high school to a few dozen. The overly-built and over-wimpy, too old or too young were easily removed, and then she had crossed out a few that she hung out with on a normal basis that she _knew_ weren't the ghost boy.

Which left her with thirty-seven, ranging from ninth graders through seniors.

She ripped the list out of her notebook and pinned it up on the wall, sitting back and putting her hands behind her head. It would probably take weeks of work to spy on all those names and figure out who Phantom really was, but Valerie figured it was worth it.

A soft beeping noise dragged her out of her musings minutes later, shaking her out of a light doze. "Ghost?" she wondered, pulling her hand out from behind her head long enough to check the small wristwatch. A slight glow off the one side indicated the direction of the spirit, the intensity of the blinking a signal as to how strong the signal was. The slow blink meant it was just a pathetic, weak little ghost.

Her hand went back behind her head, her eyes half-closing, intending on leaving the ghost alone. She'd gotten in a ton of trouble after the latest incident with Mayor Masters – her father was still fighting against her ghost hunting hobby and had grounded her soundly – and a simple ghost like that wasn't worth getting in trouble over. Phantom would catch it.

"Phantom." She murmured the name as it rolled into her mind, sitting up for a moment, then getting to her feet and pacing over to stare out her window. "I wonder if you get in trouble with your parents too." Leaning against the wall, she stared out into the encroaching evening. "Assuming you even live with them, I guess."

The thought that Phantom might not have a home troubled her a bit more than she thought it would. The human-ghost-girl had been skinny and ragged, obviously homeless and on the run. Did Phantom have anything better? Perhaps his family had kicked him out…

She shook her head sourly. That wasn't a train of thought worth going down. If he had no home, he wouldn't be in her school and then she'd _never_ be able to figure out who he was.

Without much more thought, Val found herself activating her suit and quietly pushing open the window. Her father had attempted to nail it shut (an idea Valerie had stopped by pointing out the fire danger) when he'd realized she was using it as a way out of the apartment. She'd promised not to use it to sneak out any longer.

The thought was still flowing through her head as she jumped onto the sill and then out into the sky, activating her jet sled as she fell. Glancing back at the darkened apartment, she winced, knowing how much trouble she would be in if her father found out about this, then turned her back on it and raced off into the darkness in search of her ghostly prey… and Phantom.

--

She found both of them only a few minutes later. Phantom was staring at the ghost with a dubious look on his face, his arms crossed, obviously fighting back a yawn. "You don't say," he muttered.

"Yes, I do say," the ghost proclaimed, holding up a hand is if to quell a nonexistent crowd. "This area is _ripe_ for apocalypse. Think of all the luck you've been using up. Mathematically speaking, Amity Park is a lightning rod for fate! The four horsemen are heading your way – if you listen you can hear them."

"Interesting," Phantom said. "Will you leave me alone now?"

The ghost waved his hands furiously. "You're not _listening to me_!"

"Believe me," Phantom growled, a tense and angry note to his voice, "I've been doing nothing _but_ listen to you ramble on for _an hour_. You're starting to repeat yourself. We've been over the horse thing already."

Valerie grinned a little, stepping on a switch that activated one of the firing cubes. It drifted up to hover near her head as Val centered the crosshairs on the apocalyptic ghost.

"What would it take for you to believe me?" the ghost asked.

"For you to be blown out of the sky-" Phantom started sourly, but blinked and backpedaled, obviously startled when Valerie triggered the cube and sent the ghost tumbling to the ground. "Wha-" He twisted around, his green eyes wide when he caught sight of her. "Valerie," he mouthed.

She dropped a bit lower, setting her board to hover next to him. "Phantom," she greeted. "Mind if I cut in."

"Go for it," Phantom said, waving his hand at the ghost that was picking himself up off the ground. "I'm sick of him."

"Why haven't you just blasted him?" Val asked curiously as she activated another cube.

Phantom's face twisted into a grimace. "I… kinda… felt sorry for him. At first. He's pretty harmless, just _really_ delusional."

Watching the downed ghost shake his head and look up at her with fear in his eyes, Val mentally crossed another person off the list. There was no way Allen Fretters would have been so kind to a ghost that was driving him nuts. Thirty-six names left. "Maybe we should just let him go?" she offered.

"That's not going to work," Phantom replied with a sigh. "He's too worked up over the end of the world – he'll follow you around all night and won't leave. I just don't have the heart to suck him up in a Thermos yet. Give me another half-hour or so."

"2012," the ghost yelled. "The end is coming! You need to stock up and spread the word – the four horsemen of the Apocalypse are on their way! Beware…"

"I'll suck him up," Val offered, one of the cubes sending a low-level blast that shut the ghost's screaming up. She held out her hand for the Thermos, but Phantom hesitated. "What?"

Phantom shook his head, drifting a bit farther away before pulling the Thermos out and unscrewing it. "I'll do it."

Wincing a little, Valerie realized that Phantom hadn't followed her thought process the past week or so – he was still operating on the last thing she'd told him and was assuming she was still trying to destroy him. He had no way of knowing that she had no plan to actually catch him anymore.

Phantom vacuumed up the luckless ghost, sighing a little as silence reigned between them. He was fidgeting, drumming his fingers on the Thermos and watching her closely.

Valerie hovered in the air, her jet sled nearly silent in the night air. "Can I ask you something?" she said, retracting her helmet so that she could see him better.

Phantom's green eye simmered in the semi-dark. He shrugged as an answer.

"Are you a human-ghost like that girl and Mayor Masters?" The startled look that settled on his face was all the confirmation she needed about her theory of Phantom not being the ghost she'd assumed he was. She nodded slowly, crossing her arms and grinning. "Who are you? Do you go to my school?"

Phantom's expression was slowly falling out of his initial surprise and a grin was crossing his face as pieces fell into place in his mind. "You're trying to figure out who I am, aren't you?"

Valerie crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow. "Well?"

Rocking back on his heels in the air, his grin grew, humor dancing in his eyes. "What if I don't _want_ you to figure it out?" he said slowly.

Mouth opening to shoot back her response, Valerie hesitated. She wanted to announce that she'd figure it out anyways – she was competitive and smart, after all – but a small corner of her mind was nudging her. After all the hunting, after all the automatic assumptions of guilt, after everything they'd been through over the last year and a half… maybe he deserved his secret if he wanted it.

It all came down to the fact that she owed him something. If not an apology, then maybe a secret. It hurt to say it, but she forced it from between her teeth. "Then I'd stop looking."

Phantom's grin vanished instantly. "Really?" he said, his eyes wide with disbelief.

She gritted her teeth and nodded. If he didn't want her to figure it out, she wouldn't look. It would only plague her relentlessly forever, like an itch on the back of her neck or a two-year-old begging for a cookie – she could handle that.

Suddenly, Phantom moved. His green eyes were just a few inches from her, his cool breath puffing against her face. Valerie felt a moment of vertigo as she stared into his oddly familiar luminescent eyes. When he tipped his head to the side, still studying her, she had to fight the urge to tip her head as well.

A small smile tugged at his lips. "You ready for the test in English?" he said. Then he vanished.

Val opened her mouth to say something, then snapped it shut. Talking to a boy who was no longer there was pointless. "What kind of answer is that?" she grumbled. "You ready for the…" She blinked. "He's in my English class."

As a grin settled on her face, she caught on to the challenge the ghost had just laid before her, despite the fact that none of the thirty-six people remaining on her list were in her English class. _Figure it out_, he was taunting. _If you're so smart, Val, come and find me_. She was back at the beginning, a week's worth of work done for nothing.

But there was no doubt in her mind that she would rise to his challenge. Figuring out Phantom's identity would be as easy as one, two, three.

_

* * *

_Uploaded July 8, 2009  
4:56, 7/8/09 - a specific moment that will never come again during our lives. Cherish it.  
Thanks for reading!


	35. The Corruption of Danny

_Happy Birthday CatalystoftheSoul!!  
_

* * *

**The Corruption of Danny**  
A Danny Phantom Ficfic by Cordria

* * *

There were many things Tucker Foley was willing to do at two in the morning. He was often up this late playing his latest addiction on the internet. Ghost hunting was an okay – if not desired – pastime at 2am. Fighting in an online auction to secure the first edition of the new 'Dead Teachers' video game was definitely a reason to still be up long after most of the city had gone to sleep.

The current reason he was out so late, however, did not qualify in the slightest. He slammed the gearshift of his car into park, glared up at a blinking neon sign in one of the most disgusting parts of the city, and debated whether or not to really get out of his car. The dark, deserted street and the looming shadows from the sliver of a moon overhead were screaming at him to keep the door firmly locked and drive home. "Damn it," he muttered, clicking his seat belt off and pulling himself from the relative safety of his car.

Stalking up to the darkened door, Tucker refused to glance over his shoulder into the night. He'd long since realized that giving in to his imagination only made it worse – there was no one following him, stalking him, or about to murder him with a bloody chain saw. The logical part of his mind informed him that the only real danger on the street was the hulking monster of a man standing in the doorway, but the not-so-logical part of Tucker's mind was happily supplying him with images of everything that went bump in the night.

"I.D.," the man grunted when Tucker walked up to the door.

"I'm just here to pick up my friend-"

"I.D.," he repeated in the exact same tone, his thick arms barred across his muscular chest, a dim look in his shadowed eyes. All in all, he gave the distinct impression of a half-trained gorilla.

Grumbling slightly, Tucker dug out his driver's license and handed it over, watching sourly as the hulk carefully studied the small print. "I'm not here to drink, I'm just here to pick up-"

"You can't go in," the man rumbled, apparently not hearing what Tucker had said. "Twenty-one and up only."

"I just need to pick up-" Tucker tried, but the man interrupted him.

"Twenty-one and up only."

Tucker bit his lip and sighed, reaffirming the fact that if he were to make a list of things he wanted to do at two in the morning, this wouldn't even make the list. It wouldn't be anywhere near the list. Hell, it probably wouldn't even be on the same planet as the list. "I need to pick up my friend," Tucker said slowly and clearly, hoping that the trained monkey of a bouncer would finally understand. "Can you go get him for me?"

The man seemed to process this simple question for a lot longer than Tucker would have thought necessary. "Who?" he finally said.

"Danny Phantom," Tucker replied. "Send him out here for me."

There was a time when simple mention of his best friend's name would have won Tucker anything, when even the densest of bouncers would have quailed at the thought of 'sending' Danny anywhere, when Danny was one of the greatest heroes that had ever lived. Today, however, the large gorilla simply blinked at Tucker and repeated, "Who?"

"White hair, green eyes, about my height, twenty-one… a ghost," Tucker described, crossing his arms tiredly and quietly relegating the bouncer to even lower on the evolutionary scale than he had previously. Sure, Danny wasn't in the news constantly anymore, but the whole Disasteroid thing hadn't been _that_ long ago.

A light flickered on in the monkey-man's eyes for a moment and he turned around to open the door and stuff his head inside. After a bit of yelling – more of a roar on the bouncer's part – he turned back to Tucker and grunted, "Stay here," before vanishing into the smoky bar.

"Like I really wanted to go in?" Tucker muttered to himself, glancing over his shoulder once to make sure his car was still in one piece. Quicker than he was expecting, the door crashed back open and the hulking man returned, the slim, glowing figure of his friend locked in the man's arms.

"Here," the gorilla said, pushing the dazed young man into Tucker's arms.

"Thanks," Tucker mumbled after he steadied his friend. One look into Danny's blurry, unfocused eyes told Tucker exactly why he'd gotten a call at two in the morning. "Come on."

Danny stumbled towards Tucker's car and fumbled with the latch for a moment for managing to open the passenger door and climb in. "Stupid place closes too early," Danny said carefully as Tucker slipped on his seat belt and started the car.

"Put on your seat belt," Tucker ordered shortly.

It took a moment and a few false starts, but Danny finally got the buckle into the latch, a look of concentration of his face. "Where we goin'?" he slurred.

Tucker put his hands carefully on the steering wheel – if for no other reason than to prevent himself from strangling his best friend – and quietly threw out his previous plan to stay calm. "You've been twenty-on for a _week_, Danny," he said, his voice almost a growl, "and this is the _third_ time I've had to come pick you up in the middle of the night!"

Danny blinked a few times, seeming to focus on a proper response. "Thank you?" he tried.

"No, not 'thank you'," Tucker snapped. "I want to know what the Hell you're doing to yourself." He stared at his friend for the longest time, watching Danny stare right back, before he let out a long breath and collapsed back against his chair. "But I'm not going to get it out of you tonight, am I." It wasn't so much a question and, as Tucker put the car into gear and started down the road, Danny didn't answer.

He drove in silence, refusing to give into the impulse to turn on the radio to drown out the quiet, running an evil litany in his head of what he was going to do the next day to shake some sort of answers out of his best friend. Cheery, top-of-the-world Danny wasn't the kind of person to go out and get completely drunk every night. Once or twice, sure – that was every newly-twenty-one-year-old's prerogative – but Danny was quickly driving it to an extreme that was frustrating and worrying.

Somewhere around the forth or fifth stoplight, Danny suddenly spoke. "Nobody called me."

Tucker glanced once at him, still angry, his voice harsh. "Called you for what?"

Danny shrugged after a moment. "On my birthday. Nobody cares anymore."

"You saved the world," Tucker said incredulously. "Of course people care."

"That was five years ago," Danny said softly, not sounding nearly as drunk as he had at the bar.

"You set up a peace treaty with the Ghost Zone," Tucker added.

"Four and a half years ago."

Tucker arched an eyebrow as he made a right-hand turn, taking the opportunity to study his friend. The half-ghost was slouched in his chair with his arms crossed, a depressed expression on his face. Most of the frustration he was feeling towards Danny slipped away, replaced by concern for his friend. "I care. Sam cares."

Danny's eyes clouded, his mouth tightening. "I haven't seen Sam in nine months, Tucker."

"She's at college-"

"She switched colleges, yeah, I know," Danny said sourly. "She needed to take summer classes and couldn't come home for the summer, I heard. She's so busy with school and volunteering that she can't even _call me_, I get it." He was quiet for a beat before slouching lower in his chair and muttering, "It's been four years since a ghost has attacked anyone in Amity Park."

"That doesn't mean that-"

"Yes, it does," Danny interrupted fiercely. "Nobody even _sees_ me anymore, Tucker. I saved the entire freaking _world_ and nobody even says 'hi' to me on my birthday. They don't need me, Sam doesn't need me, and you know what?"

Tucker quietly shook his head.

"The world spins on without Danny Phantom," Danny finished softly. "I finally got that. The world will keep spinning with or without me." He quietly traced a pattern on the window with his finger for a moment. "What's the point in being a hero if nobody needs one?"

Tucker digested that for a long moment. "We still need a hero, Danny. Just maybe not the same kind as the one we used to need."

"You're only saying that because you don't want to pick me up at two in the morning anymore," Danny said darkly.

"No," Tucker said adamantly. "I'm saying that because the world will always need a hero. Maybe not the world-saving, ghost-catching kind, but we'll always need heroes." When Danny made a disbelieving noise in the back of his throat, Tucker shook his head and let a sarcastic note drift into his voice. "Fine, Danny, be that way. The world _doesn't_ need you to be a hero. So find something else to do."

Danny crossed his arms glumly. "Like what?"

"You wanted to be an astronaut when you were younger – try doing that."

"I don't want to be an astronaut," Danny mumbled under his breath.

Tucker took a deep breath and then let it out slowly, reminding himself over and over that it didn't pay to get frustrated with drunken half-ghosts. He was _concerned _about his friend, not angry with him. Even with those reminders, his words came out a little clipped. "Then what do you want to be?"

"A hero."

There was a long second of silence after that before Tucker glanced at his friend with a dark look in his eye. "Then go be a hero," Tucker said.

"I can't," Danny said, "weren't you listening? Nobody needs a hero, especially not my variety." He closed his eyes and let his head fall back into the chair. "I _need_ to be a hero, Tucker," he mumbled, "the same way that Skulker needs to be a hunter or the same way that Clockwork needs to keep track of the time stream. And I can't be a hero." His voice dropped to almost nothing. "So what am I?"

Tucker let that question stew as he pulled a left onto Danny's street and headed towards the apartment complex at the end of the block. "You're Danny. You can be whatever you want to be."

Danny shook his head. "You know what happens to Skulker when he can't hunt?" he muttered. When Tucker shook his head, Danny continued, "He disappears. His obsession with hunting is what keeps him 'alive' as a ghost. The same with the Box Ghost – if he couldn't have his boxes he'd be gone."

"You're saying you're obsessed with being a hero?" Tucker asked, pulling up to Danny's front door. The question of what Danny's obsession was had long been a thought in trapped in the back of Tucker's mind, but it wasn't something that a friend just came out and asked. He put the car into park and turned to look at his friend.

Danny stared out the passenger window for a long moment, then shrugged. "I don't know, Tuck," he sighed. "I seriously don't know. But you should have felt how the world stopped when I realized that nobody needed a hero anymore. It was like the universe ended right there and I've been living in some sort of Hell-like afterlife for the past week. It kind of makes me understand Vlad's anger towards my dad a little, you know?" He quietly took off his seat belt and reached for the door. "Thanks for the ride."

"You don't seem as drunk as you were before," Tucker said, saying what he'd been thinking for a large part of the ride. Danny's voice had been slurry and his coordination completely missing when Tucker had picked him up. Now Danny was speaking clearly and he'd slipped easily out of the car.

"Ghosts are only drunk when they want to be," Danny replied, his green eyes clear. "Mind over matter, I guess."

Tucker blinked blankly a few times as Danny firmly shut the door and drifted towards his third-floor apartment window. "Then why am I picking you up at two in the morning?!" Tucker finally managed to sputter, but it was far too late. He slammed a hand into his steering wheel and glared at the empty sidewalk for a long moment before heading towards his own apartment, ranting softly to himself the entire way.

He didn't stop to think about what Danny had just said. He didn't hear the hidden plea in the young man's voice. He went back to sleep, never realizing exactly what it was he had missed.

It wasn't until two weeks later, when 'mysterious ghostly happenings' started to take place, when the city once again started to clamor for a hero, when Danny's eyes were taking on a slightly malicious gleam, that Tucker finally realized what Danny had meant in that car ride.

But by then, it was far too late.

_

* * *

_Uploaded August 12, 2009  
This story was supposed to be longer, but I doubt I'll continue it.  
Thanks for reading!


	36. The Life of Halfas

_I write a lot of things that get posted nowhere, get deleted immediately, or get filed someplace and lost. This, while it annoys those of you__ who like to read, generally works for me. I'm telling you this because this particular story is actually a sequel to a story that 'got filed' and has vanished. So no asking for the first part dealing with Vlad – I don't know where it is and I won't be able to find it no matter how much you beg. _

_I wrote this with the greatest respect for David Attenborough and all he has done over the years to promote the natural world. And no, he's not dead – he's 83 and living a full and happy life in London._

_A quick reminder that all my drabbles are adoptable. Some have been - check out my userpage for a list- and if you're interested in one, ask and I shan't say no.  
_

* * *

**The Life of Halfas**  
A Danny Phantom Ficfic by Cordria

* * *

_A white-haired ghost crept slowly towards the human-side of the ghost portal, gazing steadily into the human world. "There it is," he whispered, gesturing his small film crew forwards. "This is the perfect spot. Set up the camera."_

_With quick, sure movements, the cameraman lined up his camera and the soundman slipped a small microphone through the portal to rest just on the edge of the human world. The humans' sounds jumped into clarity, causing the ghosts to smile with relief. _

_"You've got them in frame?" the ghost whispered. When he got a nod from the cameraman, the white-haired ghost shifted his feet, yanked a few times on his jacket to try to make himself presentable, and brushed an invisible clump of dirt from his pants. His clothes were impeccable, as they always were even after he'd been slugging through the depths of the ghost zone, and the black eye from his last try at this was still prominent on his face. "Alright, we're set. Ready?" Both ghosts on the film crew nodded. "Roll film."_

_He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and smiled. "Action."_

_"Good morning, and welcome to The Life of Halfas." The white-haired ghost spoke in a hushed voice, his excitement and delight at what he was seeing shining clear through his British accent. "Today, we've managed to locate one of the elusive creatures in its natural habitat. Many apologies for getting cut off so abruptly last time – we've taken a few precautions to prevent that from happening again." _

_He smiled and gestured towards the halfa he was intent on filming, the cameraman picking up on the cue and zoomed in appropriately. "Notice that this one is quite a bit younger than the other, and hopefully a bit less aggressive. Look at the way it's sitting so calmly amongst the humans, so unlike how they behave around ghosts."_

_._.  
_

The halfa in question, who had no idea he was being made part of a ghostly 'wildlife' documentary and probably would have reacted badly had he known, really was sitting calmly… although it wasn't through any desire of his own. He was sitting cross-legged on a very hard table, a small but incredibly strong ghost shield sizzling around him, his parents sitting in chairs a few feet away with blank looks on their faces.

._.

_"I wonder what happened to cause the young halfa to be caught like this," the ghost whispered. "Research shows that these creatures are very free-loving and don't like to be caged – they will fight back aggressively if you try to tame them. Let's listen in and see if we can't find out what's happened."_

_The ghost with the microphone nodded at the cue and clicked a small button, turning on the small audio device placed in the human world. A moment of fiddling had the human voices coming through loud and clear._

_._.  
_

"What color is this?" Maddie asked, holding up a small piece of paper.

With a sigh, his chin propped up on his hands, Danny answered, "Red."

"And this?" Jack asked, holding out a board with a few words written on it. "What does it say, ghost?"

Danny's eyes flicked towards the small chalkboard. "_Read me_," he read blandly. "How incredibly creative."

"What does that mean?" Maddie bristled, her hand reaching towards the small ectoweapon sitting on the table.

Waiting a moment to answer, Danny watched his mother glare at him, trying not to let the annoyance welling up inside of him show in his face. "Does that count as a question?" he asked. "Ten and I go free. That was the deal, remember."

There were a few seconds of silence, but his parents finally relaxed back in their chairs and Maddie shook her head. "No, don't answer that one." She grabbed a piece of paper covered in blotched ink and held it out. "What's this a picture of?"

._.

_The white-haired host of the show made a gesture with his hand and the humans' sound cut out to be replaced with his own voice. "Absolutely incredible," he breathed excitedly, smiling broadly towards the camera. "The young halfa has apparently made a deal with the humans. This seems to indicate that halfas have developed an almost ghostly level of intelligence! To be able to communicate and bargain with creatures as low on the evolutionary scale as humans… that is amazing."_

_For a few more moments, the ghost let the camera roll, filming the creature. "Let's see if we can't find it doing other things, shall we?"_ _he asked quietly, waited a second, then whispered, "Cut." _

_The cameraman turned off the camera grinned. "You're doing great, boss."_

_"Let's hope it does something more interesting than just sit here," the older ghost murmured quietly, settling down to watch through the haze of the ghost portal. "Otherwise it's going to be a rather boring episode."_

_._.  
_

"It still doesn't look like anything," Danny complained. "It's ink splashed on a piece of paper!"

"You agreed to answer the questions-"

"Fine, it looks like a butterfly." Danny crossed his arms and stared at her. "Next question."

Maddie stared at him, then glanced down at her paper. "It doesn't look like a butterfly," she said furiously. "You're just saying that to get out of that shield."

"What do you want me to say?" Danny asked, glaring at her. "It seriously looks like ink splattered on paper to me. I don't see any pictures in it."

"You're being difficult," Maddie said darkly, but finally set down the inkblot.

Danny mouthed silently a few times, then rolled his eyes and let it drop. Arguing back while in locked in a ghost shield by his parents didn't sound like the greatest of ideas. "Next?" he asked hopefully.

"The cubed root of a hundred fifteen," Jack rumbled.

Danny stared at him, his mouth dropping open and his eyes starting to glaze at the thought of doing math. "The what of what?" he asked incredulously.

Nodding to herself, Maddie grabbed her clipboard, murmuring as she wrote. "Very literal, can't see images in inkblots. Little mathematical ability." She hummed a moment, then said, "Jack, perhaps you should try a slightly easier question."

"That wasn't an easy question?" Jack asked, blinking in surprise. "That's simple math! It wasn't like I was asking him to calculate differential equations or anything."

"Two plus two is four?" Danny offered, glancing from one parent to the other. When they didn't seem impressed, he tried again. "The square root of nine is… three," he said hesitantly. "I think." At their blank looks, he scowled. "It's Saturday. Next question."

Maddie sighed and flipped through her papers. "Okay. Name the nine planets of our solar system for me."

"There's only eight," Danny corrected, taking a breath to spit them out. Math might not be his strong point, but something like naming planets he could do.

"There's nine," his mother corrected, arching an eyebrow and scribbling on her clipboard. "Not strong on sciences," she mumbled.

Danny bristled at the accusation. He could name every major star in the sky, list the differences between blue and white dwarf stars, and explain the theory of black holes. 'Not strong on sciences'?! "There's only eight!" he exclaimed. "Pluto isn't-"

A scuff of a foot on the step caught his attention, cutting him off as his sister stepped off the bottom step. Her mouth fell open as she took in the sights, then shot a glare in his direction. "Mom? Dad?"

._.

_The white-haired ghost perked up at the sight of the newest human and quickly gestured towards the camera crew. "Hurry, hurry! Roll film!"_

_It took only moments for everyone to be in place. "Action," the ghost whispered. "Look at this splendid display we've managed to catch on film. The young male halfa is encountering a young female. Surely we'll see some of this elusive creature's mating behaviors. Let's watch and find out."_

._.

"Jazzerincess!" Jack called, motioning her over. "Look what we finally caught!"

"I'm a 'what'?" Danny snapped, annoyed. "And Pluto isn't a _planet_ Mo... Maddie. It's too small. It's called a 'planetoid' and it's not technically one of the planets anymore. So there's only…" he trailed off when it became apparent that nobody was listening to him anymore. Both of his parents were busy showing Jazz what they'd already collected on him, an odd smile growing on his sister's face as she read.

"Wow," Jazz said, glancing up at him and obviously fighting down laughter. "You guys have really collected some interesting things on ghosts."

Danny scowled at her, clenching his hands firmly around the edge of the table. "Get me out of here," he mouthed. "I can't take it anymore."

Jazz smiled and shrugged, looking around the room. Her mouth moved – she said something about a switch, Danny figured – and she looked at him curiously.

After a quick glance at his parents to see them still occupied by their notes, Danny pointed at the device that controlled the ghost shield. "The red button." His sister followed his finger, then smiled and nodded.

._.

_"Watch how the young female and male are engaged in some sort of silent mating ritual," the ghost said happily, "completely unnoticed by the older humans in the area. Isn't it amazing how well halfas integrate with human society, yet show potential for something more on our level? That particular human must be smarter than average, knowing that her offspring would benefit from the halfa's ghost genetics."_

_"Boss," the ghost with the microphone whispered, "I think those two are related. Brother and sister."_

_A look of disgust appeared across the host's face and he looked over his shoulder at the halfa and the human still locked in their bizarre mating ritual. "Halfas and humans are not as intelligent as I previously thought," he muttered. "I guess we'll have to cut some of this out of the episode to keep the rating down, but keep rolling anyways."_

._.

As his sister quietly walked over towards the computer that controlled the ghost shield, Danny tried to catch his parents' attention and keep it on him. "Planets, right?" he said loudly. Maddie jumped, but then nodded and leaned forwards with an intent look in her eye. "Mercury," Danny listed, "Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune." He waited a beat, but the look on his mother's face never wavered. With a sigh, he finished, "And Pluto."

"Excellent!" Maddie exclaimed, the grin on her face probably rivaling the one she'd had when Danny had taken his first step. "He knows the planets, Jack!"

"That's amazing," Jack agreed. "Let's try a history question next."

Danny winced and shot a desperate look towards his sister. She was quietly fiddling with the controls, glancing back over her shoulder every few moments. Wishing he could telepathically tell her to just push the stupid red button, Danny turned back to his parents. He couldn't let them notice what Jazz was doing. "Try your hardest," he said, leaning forwards.

"How long did the Hundred Years' War last?" Jack asked, leaning back in his chair and ignoring the protesting groan it gave.

"This sounds like a trick question," Danny muttered. "But I'll say it anyways. A hundred years?"

"No!" Jack grinned. "It lasted a hundred sixteen years." He turned to Maddie, still smiling broadly. "Write that one down. Apparently doesn't know much history."

Maddie looked puzzled, wrinkling her forehead as she studied Danny. "But Jack, our theory is that ghosts exist in the past; history would be their strong subject. Maybe Phantom didn't live through that particular time period. Maybe we should try again…"

Suddenly the ghost shield fizzled and vanished. "Oops," Jazz said loudly, putting her hand to her mouth and taking an overly-large step away from the computer. "I think I leaned on something."

._.

_The ghost leaned forwards with an intent look on his face. "Make sure you catch this," he breathed to the cameraman. "The young halfa has been freed from its containment. Now its natural aggressive tendencies should come into play, especially with its mate standing in the same room. This should be interesting."_

_The two other ghosts shared a look and simultaneously took a few small steps so that they were standing directly behind the host of the show. If this halfa came in their direction, hopefully it would be distracted and they'd have a bit more of a chance to run._

_._.  
_

"Yes!" Danny crowed. "Later!" He pushed himself to his feet and jumped into the air, aiming directly for the ceiling and freedom. A flare of green light just off to his right made him jerk left slightly, but Danny didn't take the time to look back and see who was firing at him. He didn't want to get captured again – it was more humiliating than he'd figured the experience would be.

Twisting intangible just before he hit the ceiling, Danny fully expected to phase through it and be safe and sound. That wasn't what happened, however. He slammed headlong into the ceiling, the place where he'd tried to phase through ripping with green light for a moment. "What the…" he whispered.

"Way to go, Jazz!" Jack called. "You turned on the Fenton Anti-Ghost Lab Deflectors! He won't be able to leave now!"

This time, Jazz's "Oops," sounded a lot more realistic.

._.

_"Amazing," the ghost said, delight coloring his British accent. "Look at how it flies, so graceful and dynamic in its natural habitat. And watch the humans – I believe they're exercising our young halfa! Watch the way they keep it darting around the room. That must be why they let it out of its cage."_

_All three ghosts watched the halfa dart from side to side, one with obvious excitement, two with a deepening sense of dread. The host, unaware of his camera crew's thoughts, continued, "The halfa is still quite dangerous, however. This is not a creature to be kept as a pet. Instead, it is better to observe at a distance and leave them in their natural state."_

._.

Dodging the ever-more accurate blasts from his mother and the occasional shot from his father, Danny brushed up against the walls and ceiling again and again, desperate for a way out before his parents managed to capture him again. He'd had enough with the questions. The 'deflector', or whatever his father had called it, seemed to have no holes. Danny was thoroughly trapped.

Green flashed and pain enveloped him for a fraction of a second, sending him tumbling out of the air and landing on the ground. He ignored Jazz's gasp of surprise and glanced over his shoulder. His parents were approaching, their weapons aimed at him. "Not again," he whispered.

That was when he finally noticed the opened ghost portal. "Yes," he breathed, pushing himself into the air and diving towards the green mists, hoping that his parents' defectors didn't cover the portal as well. Blasts of weapons fire flared around him, but Danny was through the portal too quickly. His parents couldn't hit him.

._.

_"Oh," the white-haired ghost breathed when the halfa pulled up suddenly, inches away from him. "Hi." _

_Its green eyes blinked a few times, surprise written all over its face as it took in the three ghosts hiding in the portal. It held still, not bothering to look over its shoulder as the doors on the human side of the portal slammed shut. "What are you doing?"_

_"My name is Dave Bettersborough," the ghost said. "I'm filming a documentary to be aired on GBC." When the young halfa didn't make any aggressive moves, the host relaxed and let out a shuddering breath. Apparently the younger halfas weren't as aggressive as the older ones._

_"Why are you here?" the halfa asked after a moment._

_"Where else would we film?" The ghost watched the halfa study him quietly for a few seconds, then added, "It's a great location."_

_"Humans are that interesting, huh?"_

_The white-haired ghost smiled and shook his head. "Oh, no. We're doing our documentary on halfas. Why would we bother to film humans?"_

_The young halfa stiffened, causing the cameraman and soundman to flinch and take a few steps backwards to the safety of a rock. "You're filming… me?"_

_"Of course," the ghost replied. "And I have to say that I'm not so sure you should be mating with your own sister-"_

_The halfa cut him off with a sharp jab to the face, causing the host to tumble to the ground with a muffled groan, the world spinning chaotically. "Don't. Film. Me. Ever. Again," it snarled, stalking off into green abyss of the ghost zone._

_After the halfa was long gone, the cameraman and soundman crept forwards, carefully picking up their boss. "Let's film something new," the cameraman suggested, wincing in sympathy as he realized that his boss would now have two black eyes rather than one. "Something a bit less dangerous?"_

_"Yeah," the soundman agreed. "Let's let Pariah Dark out and follow him around instead."_

_"No." The white-haired host of the most popular nature documentary on GBC pushed his crew away from him and stood up, swaying a little. "I've never given up and I've always gotten the images I want. We'll just have to try again."_

_The cameraman grabbed his camera and silently followed his boss, muttering quietly to himself. "But you're out of eyes."_

_

* * *

_Uploaded August 14, 2009  
And... cut! That's a wrap.  
Thanks for reading!


	37. Chapter 42

_'Lost' the imaginary chapter 42, since Nylah hasn't actually written it yet and it's bugging me, as imagined by me. The story NEEDED AN UPDATE. I'm sorry!_

_B'sides, I /think/ she gave me permission to write what I think comes next. (:_

_Nylah owns the idea to 'Lost', which is a fanfic I'm absolutely addicted to. To those of you who haven't read her work, here's a short recap, though I recommend reading the whole thing for yourself: Danny was captured by Walker and forced to learn to create ghost portals. He does, only it steals his memories every time he creates one. He used the ability once to escape Walker, completely destroying his memories and creating a huge mess of depression and PTSD. He eventually goes back to rescue Tucker, then Sam. After finding Sam, (at the end of chapter 41) he creates a ghost portal and pulls her back to the human world. He falls unconscious._

_This is where she leaves us. /frustrated/ So this is where I pick up the story.  
_

* * *

**Chapter 42**  
A 'Lost' Danny Phantom Fan-Fanfic by Cordria

* * *

Sometimes computers get really bad viruses. The easiest way to fix them is to simply start over – to erase the past and start fresh. Of course, with computers you have back-ups of all your files and easy-to-install programs. It usually only takes a few hours before your computer is back to the way it was… sans virus.

Human minds are not all so different, really. Wiping and reinstalling the basic operating system takes a bit more work and files are so easily lost during the reboot. Memories vanish like misplaced documents and simple knowledge disappears in the blink of an eye, never to be replaced. There is no system for backing up human memory.

In my case, I didn't figure I had all that much that I cared to lose. In fact, I was rather happy to see them go. Even as I instinctively fought to keep as much of myself as I could, I felt my world get lighter and more pleasant as the worst of the memories vanished from my mind.

Reboot. Restart.

…Who am I?

--

"Danny… Danny, wake up."

I shifted a little on the soft bed, not yet ready to open my eyes to the strange voice and the blazing light of the sun. Besides, she wasn't calling for me – I wasn't this 'Danny'. A groan escaped my mouth and I moved my head to the side, searching for a place that wasn't nearly as bright. I wanted to go back to sleep.

A cool hand touched by forehead and I blinked my eyes open. Everything was blurred and chaotic and my eyes stung. It took all my concentration to focus my eyes on the fuzzy object leaning over me. Brown-red hair. Blue shirt. Unfamiliar face.

The woman smiled at me, relief and tears mixing in her eyes. "Oh, Danny," she whispered, running her hand lightly through my hair. "How are you feeling?"

I gazed at her blankly for a long moment, processing that. She was talking to me, she was addressing me by the name Danny… why was she doing that? "My head hurts," I tried to say, but my tongue fouled up in my dry mouth.

She stood up for a moment and I felt a quiet sense of loss when the solid warmth of her left my side. I'd known this lady for a whole of ten seconds and I already felt some sort of attachment to her, strange as it may sound. As she poured a small glass of water, I looked around the room. It was empty, except for the two of us, and that caused a stir of emotion in me.

Shouldn't my family be here? I contemplated that, reaching out to gratefully accept the glass of water the woman was holding out to me to drink and allow her to help me sit up. Who was my family, anyways? I knew I had one, I had to have one, but I couldn't remember who they were.

I lowered the empty glass down to my lap and stared at it. I didn't know who my family was. The thought made my stomach churn painfully.

Avoiding the lady's eyes and her repeated question asking me how I was feeling, I looked around the tiny room. It was a hospital room, I figured. I didn't know where or why I was in it. Perhaps I had hit my head.

"Danny?"

"Why are you calling me Danny?" I asked, turning to look at her and hesitating when I saw the look in her eye. She looked broken, somehow. For some reason, my question had snapped something inside of her.

She swallowed and blinked tears out of her eyes. "What else would I call you?" Her voice trembled.

I thought about that for a moment. What was my name?

_What was my name?_

I heard the paper cup crumple and I looked down, vaguely surprised to see that my hands had turned into fists. My hands were shaking in my lap, dark spots swimming before my eyes. "My head hurts," I whispered, answering her earlier, safer question.

Another hand appeared in my vision, reaching over to gently work the cup out of my grasp. "You want some more water?" she asked softly.

I looked up at her, seeing the tears that were running down her cheeks and wondering why. I shook my head. "Who are you?" I finally asked.

A small smile appeared through the tears and she lowered herself onto the bed next to me. An arm wrapped around my shoulders. I shivered unconsciously at the act, for some reason uncomfortable with being held. There was something wrong, something that had happened. For reasons I couldn't understand, I felt like I didn't deserve it. "My name is Maddie Fenton," she said slowly, quietly. "I'm your mother."

The sentence didn't jive quite right. I felt nothing for this unfamiliar person – how could she be my mother? Weren't you supposed to love your parents? I knew that I was supposed to love her – there was a whisper in the back of my mind that I needed to remember that I loved my parents. But this woman… this 'mother'… was just a body.

For a few seconds, I tried to think of something to say to express what I was feeling, but I let it die in my mouth and just allowed her hold me for a moment. Silence was okay with me. It was easier than speaking, sometimes, and it seemed as though she needed something to hold.

"You did a good job, Danny," she whispered in my ear. "I'm proud of you."

I had no idea what she was talking about, but whatever it was that I had done had landed me in a hospital. I couldn't imagine any parent being proud that their son ended up in a hospital bed. "Oh."

She pulled away from me at that, moving so that she could see into my eyes. I glanced at hers, then looked down at my hands, uncomfortable. I wanted to stay like that, allow her to say whatever it was she had to say to the top of my head, but I felt a hand on my chin pulling my head upwards.

"You don't remember it, do you?"

I shook my head.

She bit her lip, looking down and then back up at me. "And you don't remember who you are either," she breathed.

Again, I quietly shook my head. I could see the tears in her eyes again, threatening to cascade down her face, and I was surprised to find my own vision blurring. I wasn't sad, like she was. I was feeling the start of something very much like terror curling around inside of me.

It was the lack of knowledge, I thought. It was scary not knowing so much. It was terrifying knowing that there was an entire world missing from my own mind. I was angry that I didn't understand and that I couldn't figure it out on my own when I should have been able to.

I could have given in to that fear and anger. I know that I could have; it wouldn't have taken long for it to well to the surface and consume me. I could have lashed out, trying to rid myself of the clinging emotions, desperate to find a way to understand, terrified of the dark emptiness in my own mind.

Instead, I looked at the woman who was claiming to be my mother. I wasn't alone; I didn't have to be scared. She would tell me and clear away the darkness. "What happened?" I asked. "Who am I?"

"You saved your friends' lives," she whispered, reaching up to brush away a tear from my face. I hadn't realized I was crying, but I couldn't take my eyes off of her as she spoke. "You almost died doing it, Sweetie. I was so afraid that I would lose you." Her hands were trembling. "I watched that ghost attack you with that sword and I thought I was never going to see you again."

I didn't try to process what she was saying – it sounded like a lot of nonsense with ghosts and swords – and just stayed quiet, hoping she'd say something that would spark a memory inside of me.

"And when you vanished with Sam, Tucker figured out exactly where you'd gone. You were back in that cabin again. Back where you appeared the first time." She smiled at me. "You were unconscious when we got there; Sam was so worried. We brought you here, but the doctors said we couldn't do much but wait for you to wake up."

She took a steadying breath. "As for who you are, you're my son. Danny Fenton. You're seventeen and you're a hero, even if you don't remember it."

I thought about that for a moment. I didn't have much of an idea who this Sam was, or Tucker, or the cabin she was mentioning. Sam was a girl, I was almost positive of that, had vibrant violet eyes, and a strong dislike of dragons. Tucker liked red. The thought of cabins made me shiver, although I didn't know why.

The name I'd take, though. Danny Fenton.

I let it settle down on my shoulders like a mantle, accepting it as mine. Until someone with a more logical story came around to refute the name, that much I would take as fact.

The yawn startled me almost as much as it did Maddie. My eyelids felt heavy as I scattered the information I'd been given around in my empty head. "Danny Fenton," I repeated, almost liking the way it sounded in my mouth. Just for a moment, it felt _right_.

"The doctors said you'd probably be tired for a few days, after all you've been through," she said softly. "You should get some rest, Sweetheart."

I agreed with that – I did feel tired. Now that she'd chased away some of the emptiness by giving me back my name, I allowed myself to feel the exhaustion that was biting at my heels. "You're going to be here when I wake up?" I asked, feeling a moment of fear that I would be alone when I woke up.

I didn't want to be alone. They would get me. My heart started to race at the thought of _them_, even though I didn't understand who they were.

"I'll be right here," she answered solidly. When I laid back down against the pillows, she ran her fingers through my hair a few times and repeated herself, almost as if to reaffirm it to both of us. "I'll be right beside you, Danny."

My eyes closed for a moment and I relaxed, starting to drift off to sleep, but then I remembered something. "Are you really my mother?"

"Yes."

"I was supposed to remember to tell you something," I said sleepily. I blinked a few times, focusing on her face as I struggled to remember what it was I was supposed to say. "It was important. I wasn't going to forget."

She smiled, her fingers still gently running through my hair. "You can tell me when you wake up, Sweetie."

"I was supposed to tell you that I love you," I said as my eyes closed and sleep started to claim me, dragging me into the emptiness of my own mind. "And that I'm sorry."

"You don't have anything to apologize for," she whispered. "And I love you too, Danny."

I think I mumbled, "Good," but my mind had cast free from my body and wrapped itself in dreams filled with valiant knights, evil dragons, and usurping kings. And flying. I loved flying, now that I wasn't quite so lost.

_

* * *

_Uploaded August 15, 2009  
Sticky gooey what-ever-ness. I got a date to go get ready for now. Later!  
Thanks for reading!


	38. The Pawn

_I'm in a 'present' mood lately, apparently. Too many drabbles written in present tense... _

* * *

**The Pawn**  
A Danny Phantom Fanfiction by Cordria

* * *

I hate to say this but I really have to give credit where credit is due: I've learned a few things from Vlad. I've learned what I'm never going to let myself become. I've learned how to accept defeat. I've learned some new powers from him.

But mostly I've learned to be a sneaky little git who can get away with almost anything I want. It's hard to admit, but it's sadly true. In the past two years I've gone from someone who couldn't even get a lie past my distracted _parents_ to being able to lie straight-faced to my best friends.

Sometimes it keeps me up at night, you know? When I think about it, anyways – like I'm doing now. Lying on my back as the clock ticks towards midnight, staring at my seriously messed up ceiling, wondering why my life has taken the turns it has.

I know I've jokingly quipped to Vlad a dozen times that ghost powers really mess with a person's mind… but they really do. Or maybe it's just the secrets that surround having ghost powers that's really the problem. Maybe everything would still be normal if I hadn't thought to keep it a secret from my parents all those months ago.

Probably not, though. Ghost powers come with too many issues even if you subtract all the secrets. And, had I not kept it a secret from just about everyone, there's a good chance I'd be sitting in a lab somewhere being experimented on right now. Now _that_ would lead to a normal state of mind, don't you think?

I really hope that the sarcasm came through that. If not, go back and reread it for me, would you? Add in a thick layer of sarcasm in that last sentence.

Take my ceiling for example. My ceiling really has little to do with my mental state – well, I guess it does, more than you'd think anyways, but it's a good place to start – and it's something that I have to deal with simply by being what I am. I'm a ghost, or at least part of me is or was or will be, or whatever. And in being a ghost, I have a lair: my bedroom.

Over the past few years, my ghost has 'settled' into my room and the whole place has started to take on some of the same aspects as a real ghost's lair. It's colder in here with no obvious excuse as to why, shadows get stuck in the corners easier, and it just feels different in here. My friends say it feels creepy, like they're being watched all the time. I say it feels more like home. There are times I don't want to leave. Those are the times I totally understand why Vlad sits in his mansion and doesn't have a girlfriend.

The best part – or maybe the most messed up part, depending on your opinion – is the fact that my room has started to respond to me. Ghost lairs in the ghost zone become whatever their ghost wants or needs them to be. I've always thought it was a neat trick. Now that mine is doing it too… it's still a neat trick. Incredibly hard to come up with excuses for when my parents actually notice something, but still awesome.

Like the ceiling. You're probably wondering what's up with it after all this. My ceiling used to be white. Boring flat ugly white, with the exception of a few oil stains from when my parents were building the ops center. You've probably got a ceiling just like it. Well, minus the ectoplasmic oil stains.

It's not white anymore; now it's a field of stars, showing exactly what would be shining in the sky if the clouds, the ops center, and the ceiling weren't in the way. I can see the moon usually – not tonight, though, as it's a new moon tonight. The rest of the stars are there. Sirius and Vega and Polaris and Mira and Arcturus… Even some of the planets. I can trace the constellations all night if I want to. Even in the bright light of the day I can still see them.

It's absolutely awesome. I can't think of any sort of ceiling that would be better than mine.

"Danny? Sweetie, why are you still awake?"

I roll my head over to look at my door – which I forgot to close _again_, I really should write myself a note or something – and sigh. Mom. What is she still doing up? I thought she went to sleep hours ago. "Not tired."

She walks into the room and settles onto the bed next to me, unconsciously crossing her arms at the feel of my lair. One of these days she's going to realize that she's doing that and figure out why, and then I'm going to have to use the excuse I've been cooking up. I've been keeping a ghost in a Thermos under my bed, ready to let it go when my parents start demanding to know why my room feels like a ghost's lair. Perfect reason: there's a ghost in it. I'll even give them the ghost to chase away. They don't need to know that there are really _two_ ghosts in it.

"You're 'not tired' a lot lately," she says softly, reaching out and flipping on the small light next to my bed. I have to close my eyes at the bright flare of light – I can see just fine in the dark once my eyes get used to it, but it seriously hurts when someone turns on a light so _they_ can see – and wait for her to continue. I know she wants to. "Something on your mind?"

I shake my head and work at getting my eyes open again. I _hate_ it when people flip on lights like that. "Not really," I say, not nearly as smoothly as I could, half hoping she'd pick up on it and half hoping she'd just accept it and go back to bed.

Mom makes a disbelieving sound in her nose and shifts her weight on the bed. "You're going to have to stop lying to me one of these days, kiddo." Her words are solemn, but there's a lightness to her tone that lets me know she can see the humor in the situation.

"Never," I reply dramatically, finally getting my eyes to open and grinning up at her. "My life is not yours to pick apart." My smile widens a little at the double meaning to that – whether lie-by-lie or molecule-by-molecule. I need to remember that phrase to use again later.

She rolls her eyes good-naturedly, but then her expression goes serious for a moment. "Danny, you know we're worried about you." I nod and put my hands behind my head. "All this disappearing you do… the lying… all these problems you're having at school. I wish you'd talk to us, let us help you."

This is probably where I should make a clarification: my parents are very often termed "oblivious". I'm pretty sure Vlad started the use of that adjective and it only goes to show how little Vlad truly knows about my family. My parents aren't really all that oblivious. They're well aware that something is wrong with me and they can list – in either alphabetical or chronological order, depending on your preference – all the problems I'm having. And they can hit the nail on the head with each one. I'm positive that if 'half-ghost' ever came into their frame of thinking it wouldn't take more than a few minutes for them to connect the word and me.

My parents are, in fact, just incredibly distractible. They'll stop whatever they're doing to chase a ghost that may or may not exist, or research some new idea, or build the latest invention that's jumped into my father's mind. It's really useful for me, as whenever they remember their questions about me and start following me around I can quite easily find something to stop them in their tracks. It sometimes takes them weeks to even remember that I exist, much less that I'm having some kind of problem.

Do I feel bad about it? Definitely. Is it a bit too much like Vlad to suit my tastes? Without a doubt, yes. Do I do it anyways? Over and over? Yes and yes.

"I can figure it out," I say and shrug, which isn't the easiest thing to do when one's hands are behind one's head. "It's no big deal."

"It's a big deal if you're lying to me about it so often." Her words are soft, the sigh evident. Her eyes are sleepy but they gaze at me with a quiet steadiness that I can't shake. "And it's keeping _me_ up at night too." The smile reappears on her face, but it doesn't touch her eyes. She seriously wants to know what's bothering me. "Just give me a hint. Please?"

I'm not heartless. I'm very proud of the fact that I'm not a heartless fruit loop like Vlad, able to turn his back on starving children and kicked puppies without even a twinge of regret. My eyes close and I groan in my head. Dang it. I'm going to have to tell her something or she's going to stare at me with those eyes until I break and tell her the real truth. "Well…"

She says nothing as I search for what to say. The best lies have a few things in common. They stick as close to the truth as possible, making it easy to remember and harder for other people to pick apart. They also hand over an answer the other person is willing to accept or, even better, is precisely the answer that person is looking for.

Lies inside of lies. The gray area between truth and fiction. The ability to appease my mother's conscience without destroying what I've been working to build up for two years.

I hate Vlad for having taught me this.

I fix my eyes up at the ceiling, tracing the lines of Ursa Major. Normally when you lie you should look someone in the eyes, but not when the 'truth' is being dragged out of you. Especially the 'truth' I'm about to hand to her. I shift uncomfortably on the bed, the sigh and close my eyes. I don't want to have this talk right now, but I _really_ don't want to have the other talk. "It's Sam."

I can almost hear the pleasure in her voice. "Sam, huh?"

Fighting not to roll my eyes, I lever up on one arm and let my eyes drift around the room. "Yeah." I shrug one shoulder and wait for her to speak. If she jumps to her own conclusions it's not really me lying to her. I fully realize it's splitting hairs, but I've been doing a lot of splitting hairs lately and sometimes it's the only reason I can sleep at night.

'It's Sam' really could mean anything. There could be a Sam in school who is sick. Or a Sam on the football team who's going to beat me up before school tomorrow. Or a Sam on a TV show I can't get out of my head. There could be a million things those two words could mean, but I trust my mom to jump to the right one for me. I just have to stay quiet until she does.

"You like her."

Bingo. I feel my skin flush a little as I nod. Honestly, I'm still not sure how I feel about Sam. I know she likes me – _likes_ like me – and I know I like that she likes me. And I fully understand that I hate the dismal feeling in the pit of my stomach that I get whenever I use her to distract my parents from the real problem. I know she wouldn't care – the fake-out-make-outs were her idea, after all – but I still don't like how using her makes me feel.

"Sweetie, there's nothing wrong with liking Sam. She's a really pretty girl and you two have been friends forever." She smiles and pats my shoulder. "I've seen how she looks at you, I know she likes you back."

"Yeah," I say softly and flop back onto my bed, trying to picture Orion holding his bow up in the stars in an attempt to get my mind off of what I'm doing to Sam and my mother.

She leans over me with a bit of a scowl, blocking my view of the stars she doesn't know are on my ceiling. "That's no reason to lie to me all the time." But the frown vanishes and she adds, "I guess I understand it a little, but if you want to go see Sam you should just say so rather than lie about where you're going."

"I know."

A look drifts across her face and she whispers, "I know you know." Before I can even being to process what that might mean, she leans down and gives me quick kiss on the forehead. "Now stop staring at your ceiling and go to sleep. Mom's orders."

I finally allow my eyes to roll and listen to her chuckle as she gets to her feet. "Night," I say as she makes her way across the room.

"Good night, Danny."

After she leaves, I flip the light back off and let my eyes readjust to the darkness. My hands go behind my head and the stars twinkle at me from my ceiling, my mind retracing the 'talk' I'd just had with my mother. She accepted the Sam excuse for now. Sam would probably never even realize I'd used her – again. A scowl appears on my face – I can't even deny to myself that I'd just lied and manipulated my way through another conversation with my parents. It makes my stomach sour.

Somewhere, Vlad's probably laughing his head off. "All the pawns doing exactly what they're supposed to," he's saying with that better-than-thou smile on his face. "You're getting more like me every day, little badger."

"Ghost powers really mess with a person's mind," I whisper into the darkness, then push the whole mess from my mind and roll over to try to catch some sleep.

_

* * *

_Uploaded August 29, 2009  
Ech. Whatever. CHESS! PAWNS! I don't know where it came from either!  
Thanks for reading!


	39. In the Morning

_dA journal entry, uploaded here because I'm bored... sorry if you've read it before.  
_

_And my music just quit. It's so quiet...  
_

* * *

**In the Morning**  
A Danny Phantom Fanfiction by Cordria

* * *

How can he just be sitting there, staring at me like this? His green eyes simmering with power, his white hair almost glowing even in the darkness of this… this… wherever this is. He seems so calm.

But he's just a child. He's fifteen from the look of him – tops. Still a lank teenager with a lot to learn about the world, struggling to be independent and wanting to do start doing things on his own, but still tethered to his family. Still dependent on… on who?

On me, right now.

That's why he's staring at me; that's why he's waiting. He's confident that I have a solution this problem because I'm the adult and he's the kid. It's my job to know everything, isn't it? It's what I'm supposed to do.

I've got a news flash for him. I don't know. I'm just as lost here as he is and there's nothing I can do about it. The ghost should just leave off and go find some ghostly parent to leech off of, rather than me. I'm just a human, after all. He's a ghost.

I don't quite understand why he hasn't gotten up and flown away yet. Why he's following me the way he is, trailing behind me like a puppy. Can't he just phase through the walls and vanish into the sunset, leaving me in this endless maze to fend for myself? I almost wish he would, it's rather creepy hanging around with a ghost all the time. Those eyes, sparkling and glowing the way they do, cause shivers down my back and I'm always feeling like he's staring at the back of my neck.

"Jack? You okay?"

Then again, I do like the company. Maybe he shouldn't leave. "Yes," I say grumpily. "Why are you following me around again?"

It's not the first time I've asked it and it's not the first time the ghost answers in a way I can't understand. "I can't leave," he says darkly, crossing his arms. His eyes glow brighter for a moment, but then it dies back to the normal level and he shoots me a look that has a bit of panic in it. "What, you want me to leave you alone?"

I just sigh and poke at the small fire I've managed to get started. Why has this ghost chosen me to be dependent on? We've passed a number of actual ghosts that he could follow around. It's unnatural for a ghost to be hanging around with a human like he is. We are.

"Why can't you leave?" I press, trying to get a little more information, but the ghost doesn't answer. He never answers, not when I try to get him to talk about anything. It's frustrating – my first real chance to grill a ghost with all of my questions and he completely stonewalls me.

I shoot him a glare but it doesn't have as much an impact as I would have liked since he's staring out into the darkness. Two stone walls stretch into oblivion to our left and right, the ghost's back pressed against one and my bulk settled against the other. This particular stretch of the maze doesn't have any offshoots, one of the reasons we picked it to camp in for the night. Harder for things to sneak up on us.

My stomach grumbles unhappily and I rub at it, wishing for something to eat, but the long paths of the maze the ghost and I have walked through these past two days are full of nothing but death. Dead vines, the occasional dead tree, dead weeds littering the floor. My stomach rumbles again – louder – and the ghost actually flinches, looking over his shoulder at me with wide eyes. "What was that?" he asks in surprise, searching through the darkness around us.

"I'm hungry," I say as a way of explanation, feeling a moment of anger that I'm answering his questions but he isn't answering any of mine.

His eyes flicker back to mine and then he offers me a slight smile. "Yeah, me too," he whispers before returning to staring out into the darkness.

"Yeah, right," I snort. "Ghosts don't get hungry." He doesn't have any internal organs, he doesn't have a stomach, he can't eat. Thus, he can't get hungry. He's just a ball of post-human consciousness given form via a supernatural form of super-cooled plasma.

The ghost just shrugs at that and pulls his knees up to his chest, resting his arms on them and gazing away from me. I've got a great view of the back of his head, not that I want to see the back of his head. I'm not even sure why I'm still staring at him, so I yank my eyes away and turn to look down the deserted length of the maze.

"Have you figured out how we got in here yet?"

I shake my head without looking to see if the ghost was watching. I do actually have a few theories, but I'm not going to share them with the young ghost. If he's never going to offer any information, then neither am I. I know it's childish, but I don't really care.

The problem with most of my theories is that I have no proof of any of them. I've never been very big on proving things anyways – that's what Mads is good at – but in this case I can't even begin to pin down how we ended up in this maze without any clues.

I was asleep in my bed at home next to Mads. Then I woke up in this dead labyrinth. I ran into the young ghost a few hours later and he's been tailing me ever since, refusing to answer any questions about how he got there or why he's following me around.

There's all the solid information I currently have. Not nearly enough to build any sort of working theory out of. And I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that we won't be able to get out of the maze without knowing how we got in.

"Do you think the rest of ou… your family is in here somewhere?" the ghost asks quietly and I shoot him a look. There's a thought I hadn't stopped to consider before and it causes a sharp pain in my stomach. My daughter, my son, my wife… wandering alone in this dead maze, hungry and lost…

"Why would you think my family is in here? There's just me so far."

He looks over his shoulder at me, then shrugs and falls silent. Another of my questions that will go with no answer. I grit my teeth and struggle with the fact that I really shouldn't strangle the young ghost. Beyond the fact that it's foolish to try to strangle something that doesn't breathe, he's still a child. A dead child, but still a child. "Thank you for all the helpful information," I say sarcastically.

The ghost's eyebrows twitch in confusion. "Huh?"

Not for the first time, I wonder if ghosts' minds simply don't work the same way as humans'. "You haven't answered a single question I've asked you yet," I clarify, frustrated and angry. "You keep following me around, asking me how we're going to get out of here, and you're not helping."

He blinks a few times, then tips his head to the side and shrugs. "You're the ghost researcher, the expert…"

"What does that mean?" I sit up a little straighter and turn to look at him straight on. "What does being trapped in this maze have to do with me being an expert on ghosts?" I can't help but glare at him a little as I demand my answers, mostly expecting him to turn around and leave me to stare at his back.

He doesn't, this time. He just continues to stare at me for a long moment. "But…" he says slowly, "don't you think it's a ghost that got us in here?"

"I don't know."

He twists around too and sits with his legs crossed, his chin resting in his hands. "We woke up in here," he says, gazing into the small fire, "in the middle of a maze. Doesn't that sound kind of paranormal to you? How else could we have gotten in here?"

It doesn't, in fact, make any sense at all. "Why would a ghost have taken the two of us and put us in a maze? It doesn't make any sense."

A small smile flickers onto his face and he pokes at the fire with a dead vine. "Ghosts don't always make sense. There could be a ghost some strange obsession about sticking people into mazes."

"Then we're in the ghost zone."

The ghost shrugs. "If we are, it's not a part I've ever been in. Usually the sky is green in the ghost zone…" he trailed off and gestured towards the sliver of sky visible between the tall walls. "That sky seems more human. Blues and blacks."

I can't put it together. It makes no sense. So I just repeat what he's saying. "A ghost took us in our sleep and dropped us in a maze in the human world?" I ignore the troubled look on the ghost's face and press forwards. "Do you realize how little sense that makes?"

"It makes lots of sense!" he shoots back, his words spilling out of his mouth. "If there were a ghost that lived in the human world and happened to have a grudge against the two of us." His eyes widen suddenly and he looks away from me, biting his lip.

He just said something he hadn't meant to. All these non-answers, the slips of the tongue, the endless silence to my simplest of questions. My frustration boils dangerously. I'm a very open person and I've never understood the all the secrets and lies of other people. It's very slowly driving me nuts. "Are you saying there's a ghost out there who would have a reason to put us in here?"

The ghost shrugs and refuses to look at me.

"My family might be in danger!" I demand, getting to my feet. I tower over the young ghost and normally I'd feel bad about it, but right now I'm enjoying the way he has to crane his neck to look up at me. "I'm not just going to sit here and listen to you not answer any of my questions!"

Grabbing one of the dead branches we'd collected for firewood, I stuff the end into the fire to light it and then turn, intending to use it as a torch. I stalk down the endless hallway, furiously searching for a way of here. If there is a ghost out there with a grudge against my family, there's no way I'm going to just relax in this maze. My family might already be hurt!

"Jack!" the ghost calls after me.

I ignore him. I don't want him following me anymore – the ghost could find some other ghost to trail behind like a lost baby duck. If he isn't going to tell me anything-

There was a scramble of feet on uneven ground and I pick up my pace slightly, but the young ghost easily overtakes me. He slides in front of me and stops right in my path, his bright eyes searching mine. I stare back, waiting for him to move out of my way. He isn't going to actually tell me an answer – by this point I'm pretty sure the spook has an obsession for keeping secrets. He's just going to gaze at me like a kicked puppy until I give in.

And I know I'll give in. Eventually.

"The ghost's name is Plasmius," the young ghost says softly, startling me. My mouth drops open, but he just continues to stare at me. "I think you call him the Wisconsin Ghost. He's had a grudge against you for about twenty years… me for about two. And he's got this obsessive thing for Maddie."

Images of the Wisconsin Ghost flip through my mind. The vampiric spirit throwing me in a cage while he attempted to steal my ghost portal. The way he laughed when he overshadowed me at my class reunion. The dozens of times I'd seen him send careless blasts of energy in my direction.

My fingers curl tightly around the dried branch I'm using as a torch, uncaring about how fast the fire is licking towards my fingers. "Why would he throw us in a maze?"

His eyes drop and I wait for him to not answer. "I don't know," he says after a minute. "I can't figure out what his plans are before he goes through with them. Then it's usually too late."

"Best guess?" I ask.

His shoulders drop a little. "To get us out of the way while he does goes through with some other plan that I have no clue about."

I decide to try to press my luck by asking one more question. "And why don't you just fly away?"

Green eyes jump up to meet mine and narrow dangerously. He seems to debate answering forever before his mouth moves and words came out. "There's this… device… that short-circuits my powers. Usually it's just for a few hours, but it's possible there's stronger that could last for days." He looks away and crosses his arms uncomfortably. "I haven't been able to do anything since I woke up here."

"Ah." My fingers are starting to get burnt by the torch and I have to drop it to the ground. Rubbing my hand on my shirt, I glance back at the ghost. He's still standing there, awkwardly waiting for me to say something. It must have taken a lot for him to admit that he was basically defenseless. Especially to a ghost hunter.

No wonder he was following me around the way he was. I almost feel sorry for him.

Almost. He is a ghost, not a human. But he's a defenseless, young ghost who looks like the world's about to end.

"You think your family's really in danger?" he asks suddenly, looking up at me with a worried look on his face.

Yes, yes I do. Knowing that the Wisconsin Ghost – Plasmius – has an active obsession with my wife only strengthens my concern about my family. I open my mouth to tell him just that, but I reconsider at the last moment. I smile, even though I don't really feel like smiling, and put a hand on the young ghost's shoulder. "We'll just have to go rescue them!"

A small smile appears on his face, some of the worry smoothing away. "We need to find an exit first," he reminds me softly.

I look over his shoulder into the darkness, my entire being wishing that I could set out right then, walk through the night searching for the way out of his maze, this labyrinth I've been thrown into. But the shadows are too dark for me to see and I have no real way of keeping a light going. The wood is too dry – it burns too quickly to create a torch. It hurts me to say it, but I have to. "In the morning."

The young ghost nods in agreement. "First thing in the morning."

_

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_Uploaded August 30, 2009  
No, not going to be continued.  
Thanks for reading!


	40. Top Secret

_Important: I'm holding a contest on deviantART! The prize? A signed, bound copy of my story 'Pits'. Check out _http : // cordria. deviantart. com/ journal/ 27239673/ _(minus the spaces) for details on how to enter. Please consider entering even if you lack a dA account or don't think you can draw. I'd love to get lots of entries!_

* * *

**Top Secret**  
A Danny Phantom Fanfiction by Cordria

* * *

This is a secret. You are not allowed to read this!

I mean it, put it down now. Crumple it up, shred it, and then burn the pieces until nothing is left but ash. If I catch anyone reading this that is not me, I will go medieval torturer on you. I wrote a paper on different ways to kill people… you will die a very slow (and creative) death. Trust me. Fear me.

I've got the resources to back it up too. You should meet some of my friends.

I suppose all the threats I can muster really don't matter. I'm going to destroy this after I'm done writing it anyways. Nobody will ever read it and no one will ever know I'm even writing this.

But if by some chance you do pick this up and read it, you are so dead if I find out. See, I think I'm in love with the wrong person.

Don't get me wrong, I really did try to fall in love with the right guy. I know exactly who I'm supposed to be swooning over. I'm above the simple world of school gossip chains, but I do listen. When they spend that much time discussing how I'm just perfect for so-and-so… their talk does affect me, even though I'll never admit it to anybody but myself.

I play the part as well as I can during school – and outside of school too. I giggle when the right guy talks to me, I smile and look away when we brush fingers, I stick close whenever he offers to help me with homework (even though my grades are better than his). I defiantly protest my friend's jibes that I'm in love with him… in a measured and totally unrealistic fashion that isn't supposed to fool anyone but perhaps the guy himself.

It's just not right though. It's… forced. A little piece of my heart tells me it shouldn't be like that. I shouldn't have to plan, and to think, and to process, and to make it work. It just should _work_. Every day that passes makes me feel horrible. It's like I'm settling for something that's not really mine.

I suppose I need to back up a few steps though. You see, I first noticed him about a year ago. He was across the football field with his friends and I was standing next to the _right_ guy. He'd been to a million football games, but it was the first time I'd really looked at him. He was just standing there, so cool and suave when he was surrounded by his friends, that carefree smile on his face as he waited for the game to start. I remember him rolling his eyes, crossing his arms, and grinning at that spooky friend of his.

I fell for that grin all the way across the field, across the social groups, across all possibility. My heart stopped in my chest with that one, simple, happy-go-lucky smile. I'd never felt anything like it before in my life. Then, for the next two months I ignored him with a vicious finality, hoping against all hope that he'd go away and get out of my mind. But I kept seeing him out of the corner of my eye.

And so I started to watch.

At first, I was amused by his geeky innocence. He was always tripping over his feet, being the brunt of a joke, and letting his friends seemingly run all over him. It was cute the way wormed his way into and out of every problem in the school and I watched – okay, it's more like I spied – one day as he expertly mashed his way through every video game at the mall. After he left, I tried playing a video game for the first time in my life. I died in about three seconds, suitably impressed by his skills.

Time passed, slowly but surely, and I could do nothing but helplessly stand there and watch him fall for the wrong girl over and over. He had loved me once, but I had been too young and innocent to know that he was the right one for me. And despite what everyone was saying, I knew that_ he_ was the right one for me, not the guy whose arm I was always hanging onto.

Because of how closely I watched him, I was probably the only one who noticed it. I'm not even sure his best friends realized that it was happening and that caused a little bit of a thrill in my heart. I loved the idea that I knew something about him that nobody else did. As the days trailed on, he stopped tripping over his own feet, he developed a smooth sort of grace when he moved, and his long-sleeved shirts started to show off muscles.

It was his ghost hunting that did it, I'm sure.

Are you surprised that I know? Of course I know; I follow him around almost obsessively. I've watched him fight the scariest of ghosts, my heart slamming in my chest, watching as my love defeated monster after monster. I'm sure he never knew he had an audience.

I tried to get his attention after I found out about his ghost hunting, I really did. I created a shrine in my locker to ghosts – a very specific ghost I knew was close to my love's heart. It wasn't real love, not for the ghostly image that I plastered over everything. I simply played a role, a role that I knew so very well. And still I watched him.

He noticed the shrine... how could you not? I made such a bit deal about it that even the most oblivious in school knew what was in my locker. I loved that secret smile that would play across his lips every time he saw it. But he didn't understand why I did it; he undoubtedly thought I was in love with a ghost rather than a man, and there was little I could do about it.

Perhaps I could have cried as he drifted farther away from me. I wanted to scream when he fell for that double-crossing vixen Valerie. More and more I pushed all the other boys away from me, using the ghost as an excuse for why I wouldn't date them. But as the weeks passed I started to hate that ghost. Every time I had to bat my eyelashes and take up that fake tone and proclaim my love, I hated Phantom more and more.

One of these days I'll stop caring. He won't be oblivious anymore. Some day I'll walk up to him and run my hands over his strong arms and kiss his beautiful mouth and tell him how much I have always loved him and leave everything else behind.

But not today. Not yet. I had appearance to uphold for right now.

I was Paulina, the star of the cheerleaders.

He was Tucker Foley, technogeek.

_

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_Uploaded September 20, 2009  
Yyuupp...  
Thanks for reading!


	41. Ramble

_Cleaning out old files so I can have a clean slate for NaNoWriMo._

_Originally based off a challenge from my friend: write the longest story you can about a one second moment. ...or something along those lines.  
_

* * *

**Ramble**  
A Danny Phantom Fanfiction by Cordria

* * *

Maybe it was a Tuesday. Was the sun shining? I don't really remember, but the sun was probably shining. I don't remember rain, that much is sure. I'd remember if it were raining – I don't like the rain and I tend to remember having to walk in it. And it was summer, so I highly doubt it was snowing.

It might have been a Wednesday… but I'm sure that doesn't matter, does it? It was a weekday nonetheless, most people were at work, kids were at school, and I was minding my own business, walking down the street, and basically ignoring the world. I'm not a huge fan of the world. It annoys me.

Oh yes, the sun _was_ shining that day. I was walking to buy a pair of sunglasses from the Dollar Mart, that's where I was going, because the light was shining in my eyes and it was driving me crazy. A pair of sunglasses and a bottle of aspirin for my friend. I'm sure there were a few clouds here and there, if that matters for the story, but it was definitely sunny. Yes, definitely sunny.

So I was walking down the street, sun shining, Tuesday or Wednesday, I'm still not sure which, somewhere around lunchtime. My stomach was growling. I had just walked past that hot dog vendor…

Well, that answers that question. It was a Tuesday. The hot dog vendor is only out on Tuesdays. Do you know Tony? The guy with the funky mustache like my Uncle Charley's that sells the really good hot dogs? If you put some mustard and some pickles on his hot dogs it's heaven in a bun, I tell you. _H-e-a-ven_. God and choirs of angels and lights and everything. You should get one sometime.

Anyways, it was definitely Tuesday and sunny and I was walking to the Dollar Mart to get my sunglasses and the aspirin for my friend. I was minding my own business, like a good citizen, I was. You know I'll help people if they get into trouble, yell 'fire' or 'help' or other such nonsense, but generally I keep out of other people's ways. Their lives are their lives, you know, as long as they're being good and honest.

That was when the blue car… I think was blue. I'm not so great with colors. My grandmother was completely colorblind – or at least she always used to say so, although she still always knew when I'd dyed my hair a new color – and I think it rubbed off on me a little. I've been getting worse at my colors lately. Blues and greens and purples, mainly. So maybe it was blue. But it might have been some other color, you never know, but it was definitely a car. It looked just like my Aunty Carol's car – one of those old ones with the swooshy back end and a gas mileage that makes lawn mowers look energy efficient.

Actually, I have an electric lawn mower, so I'm not sure why I brought that up. It's really got nothing to do with the car that almost ran me over. Yes, that's what I said. Almost ran me over. Honking loudly, blaring at me, scaring me out of my wits. I almost had a heart attack and _died_ right there and then when that car cut me off as I was trying to cross the street. Screeched around that corner like a screech owl. Never seen the likes of it before, not unless you count my cousin Eddie. _He's_ not one to talk about how to drive a car. Almost killed his parents learning how to drive.

The girl that was behind the wheel could've taken lessons from Eddie though. I saw her for just a split-second before she was gone, whipping up the street in her fancy car and leaving me standing there, half dead, wondering what nuclear bomb had exploded. I even looked over my shoulder to see if there was a mushroom cloud behind me, I remember because I had to squint and the sun was so bright, but I didn't see anything. Obviously, otherwise you wouldn't be here, would you?

The girl in the car, she had hair that was just like my mother's. It was beautiful, I remember. I used to sit behind my mother and brush her hair for _hours_ when I was a child, I loved doing that. It was the most gorgeous red color and it fell down below her shoulders. Girls with that color hair should really sit back and learn to enjoy their life, you know. There's no reason to be spinning out of control.

So there I was, standing in the middle of the street, almost run over like my Grammy's Thanksgiving chicken – have I told you about my Grammy's chicken? When I was a teenager it vanished from the dinner table and ended up under the wheels of my father's pickup. We never did figure out how it got there. Grammy always figured it was ghosts. I think the dog did it. But why the dog never ate the chicken, just carried it outside and stashed it under the pickup I can't explain. I can't explain a lot of dogs' thoughts, so don't bother me too much about it.

My Grammy went so pale when she saw her pride and joy sitting under the greasy wheels of that old green pickup. You know, maybe that car was green rather than blue… I do think it might have been. Anyways, her face was nearly as white as that suit you two men are wearing. How do you keep it that white? Doesn't all the bleach you have to use ruin the fibers? If you keep buying new suits, I hope I'm not paying for them. My tax dollars have better uses than buying you new suits if you don't know how to take care of them properly. A little bit of club soda goes a long ways.

Yes, yes, I was standing in the middle of the road, staring down the street at where the car was disappearing – I do believe it was green, that does make sense, I don't remember it blending in with the sky – when that young ghost appeared. He wasn't flying, that much was obvious. I know flying. I used to own a little two-seater that I flew in shows. It trailed blue smoke when I pushed the right buttons. The ghost was falling.

I remember how the poor ghost fell through the sky, looking for all the world like a dropped puppet with all its strings cut. I did that once, when I was in elementary school. They were having a marionette puppet show and I snuck back during the program with my mom's sewing shears and cut all the strings. They weren't happy with me, but I do know what a falling puppet looks like. And let me tell you that the ghost was looking just like one.

Now I'm a good citizen and all, but I'm not going to go catching falling ghosts. That's just not done, even if they're the good variety of ghosts. I wasn't too sure I'd be able to touch it anyways, and I wasn't going to touch the dead. There's something sacrilegious in that. They died, their souls obviously couldn't find peace, and now they're up and moving again. The less they have to do with me the better, I have to say. I couldn't have caught the ghost anyways because he never hit the ground, but I didn't even really try in any case. I just watched.

This other ghost appeared right before our ghost boy hit the ground and scooped him up in his arms. This new ghost looked a lot like my uncle Marvin mixed with my cousin Lucy. My uncle Marvin was a used car salesman who was known up and down the entirety of Interstate Seventeen as the guy to go to if you wanted a real lemon of a car, if you wanted to see someone with greasy hair, if you wanted to talk to a ferret who could talk the best of us into anything. My cousin Lucy was a doll, but with nothing really going on inside her head.

Once I asked her to go with me to a party, just to keep me company, you know, and she dressed up all nice. But once we got there all she was good for was smiling and nodding and sitting on the couch drinking my punch. I don't even know how many cups of punch that girl stole from me. It was seven, maybe. Probably more like ten.

So this ghost was really pretty, but with this sleazy air about him. You could look at him and almost see the grease in his slicked-back hair, feel the lemon-of-a-deal radiating off the spirit, but all the time you were kind of stunned by the handsome set of his features. Good high cheekbones, strong jaw, chiseled nose. I'm not the kind of person to go around ogling ghost men, but I have to admit that this ghost was a pretty one, in his own sort of way.

That ghost was giving our ghost boy the same look my uncle Marvin gave me that one time he caught me stealing the spark plugs from some of the worst cars in his lot so they wouldn't even start when he tried to sell them later. I used to do that a lot. I considered it a public service. I brought the spark plugs to a local car repair place and earned a few nickels for my time, and I always heard rumors that they turned around and re-sold them to my uncle. Anyways, the look my uncle gave me that time he caught me could have sent me straight to Heaven that day, that very minute, had we not been related and my Grammy's wrath hanging over the both of us.

The look on the ghost's face was _exactly_ the same as he stared down at the ghost boy. A mixed look of pure hatred and resigned love and connection. I remember how all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I saw that. But I couldn't really do anything but stand there and watch for that second that I saw them. They were ghosts, right? I'm a human. They're dead, I'm alive. That's the way the world works.

Then they were gone. Vanished like my cousin Ernest when the military came knocking at his door. Haven't seen _him_ since, though I hear his parents get Christmas cards every year still. Running off up to Canada sure wasn't… Where are you two going? I thought you wanted to hear my story?

I wasn't done yet. See, the whole thing with the ghosts only lasted that one or two seconds, but I haven't finished telling you about Ernest. He's got this new business up in Canada, this strange thing where he sells digital toys that nobody can pick up or play with but all the kids are going crazy over…

_

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_Uploaded October 21, 2009  
Ramble ramble ramble  
Thanks for reading!


	42. Running Away

_Cleaning out more old files. Be ready for about two weeks of daily updates... if not more...  
_

_**WARNING**: Uckiness about to ensue. Rated T for a reason!  
_

_Inspired by the 'song' written by Teribane, Daniblovespie, and Yurionna:_

_(sung to the tune of "It's a Small World After All")  
Pollution in the air  
Dead bodies everywhere  
The ice caps are no more  
The ocean's filled with gore  
The sky is stained with blood  
The ground is stained with mud  
It's a dead world after all!_

_Also somewhat inspired by this inane conversation I'm having with baggeralareinedumnd._

* * *

**Running Away**  
A Danny Phantom Fanfiction by Cordria

* * *

Sam rocked back and forth gently as she stared over the beautiful Calista River. It ran through the woods just north of Amity Park and it was one of the most picturesque rivers in the state. People came from hundreds of miles around just to fish the slow-moving twists and turns of the clear river.

Or, Sam corrected silently, they _used_ to. Now the river was a disaster. Garbage choked the stream from bank to bank, the river was green with algae growing off the chemicals that had been released into the water, and the river stank of death and despair.

She quietly watched an empty bottle drift haphazardly past her spot on the bank, bumping off of a bicycle, a car, what looked like a player piano, and the bloated corpse of a human before bobbing serenely out of sight. Perhaps it said something that the strong-willed environmentalist did nothing as she watched the plastic pollution disappear downriver. Only months ago she would have jumped into the river, expensive shoes be damned, to fish out the bottle and carefully deposit it into a recycling bin, all the while complaining about how stupid the human race was.

Or maybe the knowledge that Sam was sitting here, on this particular riverbank, because it was _still_ the most beautiful spot for a hundred miles said something more. Behind Sam's gently rocking body lay miles and miles and destruction, death, and chaos. Ash and smoke choked the sky as cities full of the dead burned. A pyre for the dead, large enough to befit the masters of Hell.

To think that it was just the area around Amity Park was a little narrow-minded. According to the last radio broadcast Sam had managed to hear, the rest of the world wasn't faring any better. The static-filled voices had spoken of nuclear explosions, storms that burned your skin when it rained, plagues of diseases that brought nothing but a painful death, and continent-spanning fires.

"In fact," Sam murmured to herself, fully aware of the irony of her statement, "it might not be too hard to say I _still_ live in paradise." With the horrible things ravaging the rest of the world, she felt lucky that all she had to deal with here was the stench of death, pollution, and those choking fires.

Oh, and Danny.

She quietly checked over her shoulder at the half-heard sound of a branch cracking, eying the dead remains of the forest behind her. There was little life in the forest... a bird here and there or a lucky mouse or two, but that was it. The sound of something moving had probably been all in her mid – she had developed an incredibly active imagination in the past few months - but she wasn't willing to risk her life on a probably.

She held still for a long moment more, studying the empty, burned forest for any signs of movement. Then Sam silently got to her feet and slipped down the bank to the river. Perhaps she was simply paranoid, but Sam had taken to leaving a place at even the slightest of movements and she'd started using rivers as paths. The water left no tracks to follow, making sure that nothing could tail her back to her makeshift home.

Her shoes splashed softly in the water as she headed upstream, stepping slowly and carefully around the twisted remains that filled the Calista River. Her bare leg brushed against one of the decomposing bodies, but Sam merely wrinkled her nose at the stinging scent and kept going. She had long since stopped being able to process the concept of death. The thousands of human corpses – burned, bloated, rotted, or half-eaten – meant nothing to her any more. They registered in her psyche at the same level as the dead trees.

It was times like this when she felt like the last person alive in the world. She was some sort of cosmic anti-Eve, doomed to be the antithesis of everything Eve had stood for in the Garden of Eden. The thought brought a slight smile to her face and she looked up at the death that surrounded her and the smoke staining the sky red like blood. "The Anti-garden of Eden," she whispered. It fit, in a strange sort of way.

A sharp _snap_ in the trees behind her brought Sam up short. She froze, her eyes wide as she went on high alert, her eyes scanning the trees. That hadn't been her imagination, she was sure of it. There was something out there and, in this world, there wasn't many 'something's to chose from.

"Danny," she breathed. Her body tensed and she slipped into a crouch, one hand resting in the green muck of the river bottom to keep her balance, the other resting on the small gun she carried at her waist. Licking her lips nervously, she held perfectly still and waited.

Another crack of a snapping tree branch made her head swivel towards the sound, her sharp eyes studying every shadow of the dead forest for movement. It was possible that it wasn't Danny – that it was someone else, someone she could trust – but Sam wasn't willing to take that chance. The last person she'd come across had been two steps past psychotic. After destroying most of Sam's precious food supply, the woman had tried to strangle her. Sam still had a faint bruises on her neck from the experience.

A tiny flicker of movement had Sam silently pulling her gun from her improvised holster. She stayed crouched low and quiet, not even daring to flick off the safety. Whoever or whatever it was, hopefully it would just pass her by.

When a mop of black hair came into view, Sam barely dared to breathe. She watched the stiff-legged figure stumble through the trees, heading in the opposite direction she was. Her eyes tracked the shape as it appeared and disappeared in the forest's shadows, her hand relaxing on the grip of her gun.

It wasn't Danny. Her best friend's hair was permanently white now, his eyes eternally trapped in their emerald state. This black-haired figure was someone else, someone new.

But she let the figure pass her by without a single world being spoken. She had learned the hard way that it wasn't smart to trust other humans, not in a time like this. Humans were self-centered and manipulative and she wasn't willing to risk her existence simply for a little company. Besides, based on the way the shape had been moving, he or she wouldn't be alive much longer.

For almost twenty minutes, Sam stayed breathlessly still in her crouch, waiting for the figure to vanish into the wide expanse of dead world. It was only when she was sure that the person was gone that she silently tucked her gun away and rose, edging as quietly as she could up the river.

For some reason, the idea that there were other humans around bothered her. Before, she had embraced the idea of company to the point of idiocy and overlooking the obvious, but now she was happier alone. The very thought that the mystery person might sit in her spot on the riverbank rankled in the back of her mind. It was _her_ spot.

Scowling slightly, Sam softly splashed her way towards her home, suddenly annoyed with herself. Here was her first chance in nearly two weeks to have a conversation with someone, to actually speak to something that could understand her and speak back, and she'd just let the opportunity pass her by. Sure, she was safe and happy being alone, but what kind of life was she leading by hiding away?

Passing a bend in a river nearly a mile from where she had started, Sam softly let out a breath, let the argument drift out of her mind, and finally was able to leave the stink of the river. Her boots caught in the mud for a moment as she scrambled up the steep edge of the river, her hands using the knobby roots of the dead trees for handholds. She topped the small ridge in a crouch and hurried across the clearing to a copse of dead trees. Her home was a nearly-invisible hole in the ground just beyond those trees. Eyes brightening with the prospect of being safely home, Sam picked up her pace.

She never noticed the silent figure standing on one side of the meadow, his emerald gaze watching her move. His face and hair were splattered with fresh blood, his body floating loose and limp like a marionette held up by thread around his neck.

He slowly blinked, expressionless, then moved across the meadow in a blur of speed. From one of Sam's steps to the next, he cleared the distance between them. A hand came up to grab her arm, his whole body moving oddly – almost like his wrist was being directed and the rest of his body was simply following along.

At the last possible moment, Sam finally noticed her company. She jerked away from him with a gasp, his dead fingers brushing against her skin but not catching hold. Stumbling a little with her quick change of direction, Sam scrambled to keep her balance and keep away from her best friend. "Danny!"

The young man's mouth moved but no sound came out. Instead, without a single expression crossing his face, he drifted towards her. With every jerky step Sam took backwards, Danny came smoothly closer. One of his hands came up, seemingly reaching out to touch her cheek.

"Stop it," Sam begged softly. She was sure that Danny was beyond listening to her, beyond the ability to comprehend what she was saying. She wasn't even sure if Danny knew who she was anymore. But there was one thing she knew: running was pointless.

How many times had she watched Danny focus in on someone? Dozens, hundreds, thousands? Sam had long since lost count. Each time, however, it always ended the same. Run… and Danny quietly, expressionlessly, and ceaselessly tore the person apart. "Please, Danny."

His fingers, covered in fresh blood, touched her hair and she flinched. She could feel the sharp tugs on her scalp as his raking fingers caught into small knots and tangles. Sam bit her lip and struggled to not back away, the impossibly rotten stench coming off of her best friend choking her and making it hard to breathe.

Eyes came up to stare straight into his and Sam felt a small tear shake loose from her eye and trickle down her cheek. There was nothing left in his eyes. They were blank holes, dull and empty.

She had often wondered what Danny was – some sort of ghost? A person? A dead spirit locked inside a body that it no longer belonged to? A zombie? Every time she watched Danny kill, she wondered why, she tried to figure out what he wanted, she worked to put some sort of logic into the actions.

Now she knew. There was no logic. There was nothing he wanted.

If she died, it would simply be _because_.

Her limbs were trembling, begging her to run away, and her lungs were burning. She really only had one chance to survive this. Once she'd seen a young man actually faint from fear. Danny had hung around for a while, touching and watching and gently petting his hair, and then he'd left and the unconscious man had lived. "I'm not running away."

Her feet itched. Her muscles twitched. "I'm not running away."

Danny's empty face came closer and Sam turned her head away, shutting her eyes. She didn't want to see the blankness and the death. She couldn't stand the nightmare that was floating in front of her. "I'm not running away."

Shuffling her feet unconsciously, Sam's entire body started to shake. Her breath rasped in her throat. Her body was desperate to move.

"I'm not running away."

She was still telling herself that when her body took over and she started to run.

_

* * *

_Uploaded October 22, 2009  
Kdm13 offers this explanation for whats going on:  
_It ... gives me the impression that something happened with the ghost zone.  
The ghost energy would be too much for some people of course, places too.  
It explains the destruction and disease in my mind, also, it seems to me that the people  
are more obsessive, which could also be atributed to ghostly influence.  
Danny would just be on overload and totally insane by this point  
explaining his appearance, the body can handle the energy, but HE can't._  
Thanks for reading!  
And thanks to all the influences for this!


	43. Going Nowhere

_More file clean out. Sorry to dAers who have read them all. I've got new stuff buried in these files somewhere.  
_

_

* * *

_

**Going Nowhere  
**A Danny Phantom FanPoem by Cordria

* * *

Don't you hate it_  
best_ phrase to use  
no story for it?  
It sits there  
back of your brain  
poking  
prodding  
wanting something  
begging_  
demanding  
_to be used.  
"Please," it whines  
"just once. I'm bored."

Nothing.  
Fit in this story or that  
a puzzle piece  
turning  
twisting  
changing characters  
plot  
setting  
_everything_  
but that one phrase.  
No matter  
keep trying  
doesn't work.  
Let it lie  
let it wait  
let it die.

"You will not win!" it screams  
bangs around  
twin two-year olds  
pots and spoons.  
Try again.  
New stories  
plots  
characters  
still nothing works.  
Roll your eyes  
turn up the sound  
read a book  
play a game  
Still there  
back of your mind.

Scream out loud  
run out the room  
dance down the street  
turn in circles  
shake it loose  
then  
then…  
A story  
_idea_  
little less.  
A poem?  
Sure, why not.  
Get it out  
make it quiet  
_shut up_  
I'm using you already.

Here it is  
been bugging me  
hours  
days  
weeks  
little more.  
Write it down  
leave me alone  
go bug someone else.  
"He was a ghost  
with too much time  
on his hands.  
Worth it?  
No.  
Make sense?  
Don't care.  
Got no story  
going nowhere.

* * *

Uploaded October 23, 2009  
Poems about Clockwork have to happen now and then.  
Thanks for reading!


	44. Childish Reincarnation

_Yet more dA file clean out. Don't try to figure this one out._

_dAer's - more's been added to the end for you.  
_

* * *

**Childish Reincarnation  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

Danny struggled against the ropes holding him, fear aching in his heart. Normally he would have been able to just phase through them, but in this strange place, in this odd time, he couldn't. No matter how hard he tried, his body stayed perfectly solid. In fact, it was hard to even imagine that he had ever _been_ able to be intangible.

For a moment, he forgot.

He wondered why he was doing this, where he was, _who_ he was… then he remembered it all again. Or, at least he _thought_ he remembered it all again.

Panting desperately, he yanked against his hands, feeling the harsh ropes slippery-smooth with the blood from his raw wrists. Tears of pain and terror burning in his blue eyes – _hadn't they been green before?_ – he stared around the room, searching for whoever had locked him away. _Why would his eyes have been green?_

The room flexed and bent, pulsating like a giant heartbeat, holding still for nothing more than a moment before twisting off in some crazy way. It made Danny's head spin to watch, his mind aching after only a few seconds of watching an insanity human brains weren't built to comprehend, and his stomach reacted by clenching violently.

He closed his eyes again, still working on the ropes binding his teenage wrists – _hadn't he been older than that? –_ desperate to get out of this place. For a second he thought about calling out for help, to scream out a plea to be released from this torture, but he couldn't remember who he should scream for. He couldn't imagine that there were other creatures out there at all, not if he felt so alone.

And again he forgot. He lay there, perfectly still except for the fluttering of his heart and his gasps for air, unable to comprehend that he had lost something so very dear to him.

Bits of memories came floating back, but they were horribly scattered and they shattered like glass upon his mind. His name was Ny. No, it was Dan. Maybe it was Nydan, he surely had no ability to know if it was a real name or not. Purple eyes, although he didn't know why. Green, blue, and flying above the clouds. Stars.

He didn't know that he was gone, smashed and splintered. There wasn't a thought in his broken mind that anything was wrong. This was all he remembered, lying tied up in a room that made him sick if he opened his eyes – and he didn't realize that there was anything more in the entire universe.

A sound made him open his eyes and the young boy looked up. Something slid-walked into the impossible room, full of blobs and cones and unconnected bits. An eye appeared, slitted and large as a car, before rolling around one of the blobs and vanishing. A mouth full of rows of teeth, for a moment, then a hand with too many fingers, then its heart, beating in time to the pulsing room.

He reacted purely on instinct, squirming backwards away from the impossible monster that had invaded the only room he'd ever known. His whole body hurt, trying to understand how a thing _that_ big could fit into a room only half its size. His heart almost stopped as he watched it move closer in a roiling of vanishing-and-reappearing blobs, surrounding him.

How was he not inside of it? It was there, on all sides of him, in front and behind him, but yet he was separate from it still. It was impossible, he knew that, and yet there it was…

That was when his mind simply stopped working. Blue eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed into a limp pile on the ground, his bloodstained wrists still locked behind his back.

The monster leaned forwards, one of its many eyes sliding into view to study the unconscious child lying on the floor. It made a sound, a low rumbling that was almost like a howl and a growl at the same time, and poked at the boy with one of its fingers. Black hair shifted to white for a moment at the touch and the huge creature pulled its hand away, narrowed seven of its eyes, and decided that it didn't like having this little living thing inside of its home.

It spread its here-then-gone-then-back wings and nudged the unconscious body with its foot. The floor twisted and squiggled and tipped upside down inside the room, dropping its human cargo into nothingness.

Danny Fenton, aged twenty-eight – _no, he's more like seven now_ – and about to be married to the love of his life – _no, scratch that, he doesn't remember her anymore_ – fell from Heaven to land with a crash back on Earth.

* * *

Danny died like he had lived – in spectacularly newsworthy secrecy. The rush hour explosion that ripped through the I-40 Bridge while he was driving on it managed to engulf twenty-three cars, instantly kill almost forty people, and made it on the headline news around the world. Although his death was broadcast in high definition via multiple helicopters, nobody knew that poor Danny was gone. That took two days.

Two months of DNA tests later, the coroner's office quietly told Danny's family that his body hadn't been one of the thirty-eight recovered from the wreckage. The burned out remains of Danny's car had been empty and all of the bodies that had been found outside of vehicles belonged to others. Maddie and Jack could do nothing but listen quietly as Amity Park's finest told them their son was missing and not officially dead.

Only days later, police showed up at Sam Manson's door. The remains of the bomb that had destroyed the bridge had been located in Danny's trunk. Combined with the fact that Danny had seemingly left his vehicle before the explosion – perhaps even survived it – the police had some questions. Sam listened in disbelief to the questions, stumbled through answers, and stood in shocked silence when she was told Danny was their lead suspect in the bombing of the I-40 Bridge.

Three and a half more months of questions and searches turned up no sign of Danny, but still the police were adamant that they had their suspect. Credit card charges turned up showing that Danny had purchased the ingredients to build the bomb. Comments made on web pages were made public, showing that Danny was apparently disillusioned with the entire world, describing his plot to take down a section of it. An offshore account with a two million dollar balance turned up. All fingers pointed towards Danny Fenton.

It was precisely six months to the day of the explosion that Sam Manson decided to take a walk in the park. It was precisely six months to the minute that a meteor appeared in the sky, catching her attention. It was precisely six months to the second that the seven-year-old meteor with bloody wrists and ruffled black hair fell limply to the ground right in front of her.

* * *

Uploaded October 24, 2009  
Like I said, try not to figure it out.  
Thanks for reading!


	45. Savior

**Savior  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

The young boy moved closer, his eyes wide as he kept low to the ground and tried to keep himself hidden. There wasn't that much to hide behind anymore – not this close to the center of the park – but he tried his best. Blue eyes scanned the sky wearily; his body tense and ready to run.

"You see him?" chirped a voice and he jumped, spinning around to stare at his friend. The girl had her arms folded serenely in front of her, a small smile on her face and apparently unconcerned about the drama unfolding before them.

"Get down," he hissed, yanking on his friend's shirt and pulling her to the dust. She scowled at him, brushing the dust off her hands, but stayed in a crouch behind the bush. "And no. I haven't."

She rolled her eyes and slipped forwards to peer through the bush. "Your mom's gonna kill you if she finds out you're here, you know. And I'm not lying for you again, Danny."

"Just one more-"

"No." Her voice was final, her ego still stinging from the memory of the last time she'd tried to lie for her friend. "Not worth it."

A rumble caught their attention and two sets of eyes fixed on the ghost standing in the middle of the park. It was barely human. Bulky and muscular, the spectral creature looked more like a five-foot-tall gray ice cream cone than a person. There was a frown on its face and its eyes were narrowed. "Look at it," Danny whispered, a little awed. "I wonder how it's making that noise."

"I don't care," his friend said, wrinkling her nose at the ghost's odd shape. "I'm leaving. Let's go play at my house."

"No. I have to wait…" he trailed off, staring fixedly at the ghost, unaware that his friend had stood back up and was glaring at him.

"You and that stupid ghost," she said. "Phantom this. Phantom that. Just because you've got the same name doesn't mean you have to be so obsessive over him."

Danny glanced up at her. "I'm not obsessive, Kat," he whined. "I just want to see him."

With a sour grumble, Kat looked away. "You always just want to see him. I'm sick of chasing some silly ghost around town. Let's go do something fun."

"This is fun."

"This isn't-" Kat's voice was cut off as a huge gray arm swept out of the sky and grabbed the girl. For a split-second all was silent. Then Kat screamed.

"KAT!" Danny yelled, jumping to his feet and pointing up at his friend. The ghost had swollen to dangerous proportions and was laughing in that strange rumbling noise, holding Kat far enough off the ground that she would be seriously hurt if she were dropped. Danny took a step forwards, but then stopped. What was he going to do against that? "PHANTOM!"

The ghost's laughter stopped. "Pphhaannttoomm?" it rumbled, holding the girl tightly as it leaned forwards. Red eyes, now larger than Danny himself, peered at the young boy. A blast of foul, freezing air slammed into him as the creature breathed out, and the subsequent intake of air made Danny stumble forwards.

Shivering at the cold, Danny stared up at the ghost, his blue eyes wide and his normally well-kept black hair disheveled and messy. He licked his lips, wondering nervously how long it was going to take the ghost to realize he wasn't Phantom. He didn't look anything like Phantom! Blue eyes flickered towards the still-screaming Kat.

"Bbooyy." The sharp exhale of air with the word made Danny fall to the ground coughing as the ghost pushed itself back upright.

"NO! KAT!" Still coughing, Danny scrambled to his feet and stared up at his friend. He took a few stumbling steps towards the ghost. "Let her go!"

The ghost paid him no attention, its eyes busy scanning the horizon. " Pphhaanntoomm…" the ghost murmured, its forehead wrinkling in confusion when it didn't see the local hero. "Wwhheerree iiss hhee?"

"Let go of my friend!" Danny demanded, scooping down to pick up a small rock and chuck it at the ghost's leg. It was like flicking a piece of dust at an elephant – there was no way the Godzilla-sized ghost would have felt the impact. He swiped another rock, throwing it at the ghost with the same lack of effect. The ghost was just too large and too powerful for one small human boy to make any difference.

Danny was taking another breath, ready to scream at the top of his lungs, when the white-haired form of the local ghost shimmered into view perched in the air. Danny let out his breath in a gush, a grin appearing on his face. "Phantom!" he yelled, waving his arms for a moment. "Save Kat!"

Phantom nodded. Emerald energy swirled around the teenage ghost for a moment before solidifying into a star-bright flare of light that slammed into the gigantic gray ghost. The ghost moaned – a sound that made the ground shake and birds flutter into the sky – and its hand opened.

"NO!" Danny screamed as Kat suddenly dropped through the sky. He took a few unconscious steps forwards as his wide eyes watched her fall into Phantom's arms and be scooped away to safety. "Yes!" Eyes brightening, Danny watched the young ghost disappear with his best friend in his arms, a smile appearing on his face.

His hero had just saved his best friend.

"Pphhaannttoomm!" the large ghost bellowed, the shaking ground making Danny drop to his hands and knees and reminding him that Kat wasn't the only one in danger. Danny's blue eyes flickered over to what he could see of the ghost, his heart pounding at how close the ghost's legs and feet were to him. Struggling back to his feet as the ghost moved to chase the vanished Phantom, Danny sprinted for the safety of the trees.

Glancing back once and noticing that the ghost wasn't paying him any mind, Danny slipped into the bushes and dropped to his knees, panting. Adrenaline was screaming through his veins, causing an unaware smile to appear on his face. His wide eyes checked back over his shoulder in time to see Phantom reappear and slam another energy blast into the invading spirit. "Get him," Danny panted.

He leaned one hand against a tree and helped himself back up to his feet. He needed to get farther away from the dueling ghosts; his mother was going to kill him if she found out he was this close. Fillet him alive, she would… and then she'd make a deal with the devil to bring him back to life so that she could ground him for eternity.

"Danny?"

Danny looked up at the sound of Kat's terrified voice, spotting his friend huddled in the trees not too far away. He started towards her, his anxious eyes taking in the way she was holding her arm and the wide-eyed look of panic to her face. He needed to get her out of here and home.

A cracking sound overhead caught his attention and he glanced up, noting a brief flash of green above his head. His forehead wrinkled in confused wonder for a fraction of a second before the falling tree limb slammed into him. Danny could hear and feel his skull smashing into pieces just before everything went black.

The sound of Kat's screaming followed his soul as it fled his destroyed body.

* * *

Uploaded October 25, 2009  
And I'll just keep updating old dA files...  
Thanks for reading!


	46. Flowers

**Flowers  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

Dash grinned to himself as he slipped away from his friends and made his way down one of the quieter streets. He'd brashly lied to them, saying that he had to do some special training for the upcoming football game and they'd bought it hook, line, and sinker. _Of course they bought it_, Dash told himself, striding quickly down the street. _You're Dash Baxter. You can do anything._

The money in his pocket was burning against his skin – money that he'd worked hard to get from his father. The man had been positively dead-set against giving him any more money and Dash couldn't quite understand why. Between the mumblings about getting a job (a thought that made Dash shiver) and doing something productive with his life (a thought that Dash didn't quite understand since he _was_ doing something productive with his life), he had managed to interject that it was for football. And his father had forked it over, none the wiser that it wasn't at all for football.

Dash was the _man_. He'd gotten the money, he'd gotten the free time to do this little task, and he most definitely ruled at anything he set his mind to doing. Losers beware, _The_ Dash Baxter was walking down the street. Move to the side, please, maybe even cross the street so that he didn't get any loser germs on his pristine jacket. Ruler of the Universe coming through.

He managed to keep that mindset until he stepped up to the small shop at the corner of Fifth and Cavalry. His eyes slid over the girly colors and swirls in the name, his nose wrinkling. There was no _way_ the Lord of Football was going to walk into that shop. He'd find a new shop, even if this was the best one in town. He had to – this place was just too… loserish.

Spinning on his heel, Dash was about to stride away, his agile and slick mind struggling to remember where else he could find another shop to complete his desired task, when he heard the voice of his favorite loser. Dash hesitated, slipping a hand into his pocket to finger the money he'd pilfered from his father, and bit his lip. Should he walk away or should he take a few minutes to torment the loser first?

The thought that Fenton might have seen him made up his mind – there was no way Dash was going to walk away if there was a chance Fenton would take it the wrong way. Dash scanned the sidewalks for the patent loser-shirt-and-jeans combo, trying to hear where the annoying voice was coming from. Tilting his head a little, Dash tracked the sound like a mighty hunter, confident in the knowledge that no loser - _especially_ not the loser named Fenton – would escape his notice.

Dash came to a stop, his nose a few inches from the swirls and curly-cues painted on the glass of the shop he refused to enter. Inside he could see them, the loser and the techno-loser, looking through the shop. They seemed to be arguing back and forth, pointing at various colored things.

A grin drifted onto Dash's face. Of _course_ the loser would be in this shop – where else would he be? When the sun drifted out from behind a cloud, it suddenly became harder to see what the losers were doing and Dash, unthinking, brought his hands up to the glass to create some shade and pressed his face against the window. He just _had_ to see what the losers were doing in order to best torment them when they came out.

That was, unfortunately, when the loser chose to look up. Those stupid blue eyes widened in surprise and he nudged his techy friend, both of them getting little grins on their faces.

Dash, whose mind had been firmly trying to figure out how best to torment the duo, suddenly realized that he probably looked something like a bug squashed to the window and jerked away, straightening his jacket and scowling. _No one_ made fun of Dash Baxter – he was the best. He was the king of Casper High. He was…

The loser had to pay.

Dash stormed like a prize-winning bull into the flower shop to the soft twinkle of the idiotic bell on the door, his face dark as he sought out the two losers that had made him the butt of some loser-joke. He was going to make them regret ever deciding to do that. Dash's eagle-like eyes scoured the small shop, stalking down aisles of roses and tulips and other… flowery… things.

But to Dash's amazement, he couldn't find either of them. They couldn't have snuck past his sharp eyes; they hadn't left or Dash would have heard the stupid bell. But they weren't in the shop anywhere.

_Did I imagine it?_ Dash wondered, but then shook his head derisively. _The_ Dash Baxter didn't imagine things that had to do with losers. Obviously they'd managed to get out in some secret loser-exit… or something.

Dash scowled darkly, clenching his fists as he debated what to do with his genius-level mind. He could either attempt to find them – which he was sure he could, no loser could escape his most excellent skills – or he could wait until he saw them at school the next day and take the delay out on them. Relaxing a little, Dash decided to let them go this once. Now he had all night to plan for payback… and it would be something awesome. Dash was the _best_ at planning revenge on losers.

"Can I help you?" came a soft voice and Dash twisted around, his scowl still firmly in place. The old lady behind the counter didn't look at all fazed – which astonished Dash, because his scowl was the darkest and angriest in the tri-county area – and arched an eyebrow.

Dash folded his muscular arms over his chiseled chest and raised his chin a little, looking at the ancient, wrinkled hag down his nose. "Yes. I need flowers."

The old woman's other eyebrow joined the first at the top of her wrinkled forehead and she dared to roll her eyes. "I suppose you're in the right place. What would you like?"

"Flowers," Dash repeated, wondering if the she were still sane. He wasn't always sure if they still understood English when they got to be that old and moldy, not that he'd ever get that old.

"I got that," she said, pushing herself to her wobbly legs and tottering out from behind the counter. "I _kind_ of flowers?"

Dash, feeling a little green at the thought of the smelly old woman being any closer than she already was, took a small step backwards before stopping himself. _Dash Baxter_ wasn't going to back away from some disgusting lady. He straightened his shoulders and held his ground. The old bird would back down first. "Nice ones," he said after a moment, wondering why he – the best football player on the junior varsity squad – would know anything about kinds of flowers.

She sighed, shaking her head, and shuffled into the shop. "Are they for a girl?"

"Duh," Dash muttered. "I wouldn't buy flowers for myself."

"What kind does she like?" the woman croaked, the flab of skin under her chin waving nauseatingly.

Swallowing a little and starting to rethink his idea to stay, surely there was no issue with _The_ Dash Baxter knowing when to make a strategic retreat, Dash frowned. "Why would I know something like that? Flowers are a girl-thing."

"I'm sure," the old lady said, pulling a sorry-looking bundle of white flowers out of a holder and inspecting them. "How about these? They're daisies – very pretty."

Dash let his eyes linger on them for a fraction of a second, no longer. Star football players don't look at flowers. "They're almost dead."

"They're also cheap – perfectly priced for a high school boy."

Bristling at the 'boy' comment, Dash ground his teeth. He wasn't a 'boy', he was a man. He was _the_ man. "I've got plenty of money."

The old woman made a sound in the back of her throat – a sound that made Dash shudder a little in revulsion – she put the flowers back and picked up some pink ones. "Carnations?"

"She's not really a pink girl," Dash argued, frustrated. Couldn't this lady do _anything_ right? Not only was she disgusting, she couldn't even pick out flowers. And she was getting paid to do that!

"Maybe if you describe her?" the hag said, shooting Dash a glance that would have gotten her pummeled if she were a guy closer to his age. "Maybe I could pick something out that was better."

Dash hesitated, then shrugged. "She's a girl."

The woman stared at him with her glassy eyes and pock-marked and wrinkled face for a long moment. "Anything else?"

_She wants more?_ Dash folded his arms over his perfect chest in thought. "She sings," he finally managed to get out. "She's got blue hair… and likes black."

"Ah, a Goth-girl?" The old woman's face broke into a grin that showed her yellowed teeth. Dash, keeping his lips firmly over his own flawless white teeth just in case the disgustingness was catchy, flinched – just a little, but anyone would have - and nodded. "Those two boys were in here buying flowers for a Goth too. Not the same one, I hope." She winkled one wrinkled eye at him. "I've got the perfect thing."

Dash, swallowing down a bit of bile at the thought of the old hag _winking_ at him – Dash Baxter, Perfect Son and Football Player – tried really hard to not watch the disaster of a woman totter off into the back of the flower shop. It was just so hard to tear his eyes away; it was like watching a train wreck.

When the door swung shut behind her, Dash had his chance to bolt. He wanted to get out of there and fully believed that there wasn't anything wrong with him leaving while the witch was in the back. Anyone would have left – Randy Moss would have left, Peyton Manning would have left, Tom Brady would have left, Devon Hester would have left… even Deion Sanders and Joe Montana would have raced out the door.

But he wasn't any of those men. He was _Dash Baxter_. He was inherently superior than them. Better at football. A stronger man. No one could hold a candle to him.

So he stayed. And his knees didn't tremble at all.

"See?" the wrinkled, moldy, old woman said, holding out a small collection of flowers. "They're perfect."

Dash, in an attempt to get this ordeal over with, actually looked down at the flowers. The stems and leaves were black as velvet night, the petals of the flowers a soft bloody red. They were – if someone as perfect and masculine as Dash Baxter would have ever admitted it – very pretty. "What are they?" he demanded.

"They're called Blood Blossoms. They were originally native to the area, but they're become scarce over the past twenty years. Almost impossible to find, now." The old hag grinned at him again, showing off her disgusting teeth. "Very rare. Very beautiful. Guaranteed to win your young lady's heart."

"Fine," Dash said, pulling back slightly from the moldy-cheese smell of the woman. "I'll take them. How much?"

"Seventy for the flowers, plus ten if you want them delivered."

Dash grabbed for the money in his pocket and peeled off four twenties. "Here," he said, tossing the money onto the counter. "Send them to Ember McLain."

The woman set the flowers down in a small vase and pocketed the money before jotting down the name and address in her messy, old scrawl. Dash curled his lip, knowing he could write better in his sleep. "What do you want the card to say?"

"From your biggest fan. Dash Baxter." Dash carefully spelled his name out, knowing that someone as stupid and old as this hag would get it spelled wrong. He waited just long enough for the ancient witch to get it, promise they'd be delivered the next day, and he walked out of the shop, his shoulders square and powerful.

The idiot bell chimed as the door shut and Dash grinned, heading up the street. He - _The_ Dash Baxter – had survived the flower shop and the hag inside. Something even the greats wouldn't have been able to accomplish. He was the _man_. He was a vision of perfect manliness and humanity, given form and allowed to walk amongst the common folk. They should bow at his feet and run to do his bidding.

Fingering the last twenty in his pocket, Dash decided to head to the Nasty Burger to get a celebratory burger to wash down the residual bad taste in the back of his mouth. He was the Master of the Universe – surely he deserved it.

He never even heard the soft laughter as the loser and his techy-loser friend faded back into view just outside the flower shop. "Ember's getting Blood Blossoms from Dash," the loser dropped to the ground, clutching his side and gasping for air. "I can't wait to see what she does when she gets them. And Dash's expression when she comes after him."

"Think you can catch it with my new hi-def video camera?" the techno-loser chuckled, digging a small camera out of his backpack. "That'll be priceless. Think of all the YouTube hits I'll get. Besides, I think Sam'll like watching _that_ better than any flowers you could afford."

Both of them grinned as the broad-shouldered form of the Lord of Football, Most Perfect Teenager in the State, and Craftiest Person in the Baxter Family turned the corner and strode towards the Nasty Burger, completely oblivious as to what was coming the next day.

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Uploaded October 26, 2009  
Poor Dash.  
Thanks for reading!


	47. Fight Scene

**Fight Scene  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

He crept forwards, staring at the _thing_ sitting before him with narrowed eyes. It was just waiting, staring off into the distance, so casually unaware of the fact that it was being hunted. Carefully planning his next moves and keeping to the shadows as much as he could, he slipped towards it. He needed to be completely silent in order to catch the creature that had wandered into his territory. One false move and it would vanish – _again_ – and he'd have to start this annoyingly long hunt all over again. He had better things to do than this.

Keeping to the alley shadows, he studied the glowing thing. It had taken a mostly-human form – but it was far from human despite its appearance. Supernatural power seethed and boiled just underneath the creatures 'skin', bubbling out through its effervescent green eyes and barely contained inside the frail shape it had chosen. He hesitated, painfully aware of its raw energy potential and how much the next few minutes were going to hurt if it decided to fight.

Finally he shook himself and took a step out of the shadows, careful to make sure that no power collected around him. Even the barest wisp of spectral energy would send the ghost-like creature into hysterics, he knew that much from experience. This was his fourth attempt to catch it just this afternoon… and he had the masses of cuts and scratches to prove it.

But catch it he would. He'd surprise it, weaken it, and then restrain it in a container specially designed to defuse the dangerous energy that roiled inside of the demi-ghost. He _had_ to catch it this time; the creature didn't seem to be aware of how much risk there was in it being in the human world. _That_ much power in one place in the human universe… it could destabilize the sensitive fabric of reality. It had already begun to warp things in the human world to its own devious plots, changing time or flexing the immutable laws of the universe to fit its wishes.

So far during its brief stay in Amity Park, it had pulled a number of incredibly dangerous forays into different time periods or different realities, often dragging a few unsuspecting human victims along for the ride. There were dozens of times when the creature had taken possession of human hosts to get its way. The list of grievances against the entity was huge… but at least it was still just sitting there, unaware and unsuspecting. He _could_ catch the darned thing this time. He _would_. He had to, for the sake of all of everything.

He had to be very, _very_ cautious about its capture, however. Clockwork himself had left his mysterious tower to talk to him about what would happen – in detail – if this capture went wrong. One wrong move could send the entity's carefully contained power cascading into an unstoppable force that would destroy both of the worlds. No human _or_ ghost would survive the paranormal onslaught if that amount of energy was unleashed, unchecked and unsupervised.

Glancing one last time at the dark buildings of Amity Park, finding no one around, he decided that it was time to spring his little trap. He took a deep breath – or as much of a breath as he could, being that he was also a ghost – and pulled some spectral energy out of the air to attack, watching the creature carefully as the energy collected around his hand.

As expected, the demi-ghost reacted instantly. It spun towards him, ethereal energy raging on its skin and ripping through the air as fury sparkled in its eyes. "Leave me _alone_!" it snarled, its voice grating on his nerves. He could _feel_ the power in its words and he winced at the uncontrolled energy being released. The young ghost couldn't control the amount of raw potential inside of it – power was leaking out any way it could find. A tiny ball of fear coiled in his stomach as he tried to guess how much longer the universe could take the supernatural onslaught before the constant wearing would start to show. He figured it wouldn't be long. He needed to catch this thing – and _fast_. No more games, no more random hunting, no more tricks. The thing was growing more powerful by the day.

"No," he snapped, pushed the collected energy into one of the guns he had borrowed, and wished that he could fire it faster. He put forth his normal bravado and smirked at the fuming ghost-child, not wanting the creature to realize that this hunt was different from the others. This time, there would be no escape. "You won't escape this time, whelp."

Its eyes narrowed, the rampant power inside of it boiling and writhing as it grew angrier. He took a small step backwards, wincing in anticipation of the attack as it spoke to him. "This is the seventh or eighth time you've attacked me today," the ghost-child seethed. "What is so special about today? Is it some sort of anniversary or holiday everyone's forgotten to tell me about?"

"Nothing special," he answered with a half-hearted grin. "I'm just tired of you not being on my wall."

"Yeah, great. Remind me to shudder in horror later," the boy muttered. Reality screamed as the ghost-child erratically yanked supernatural energy out of the air and collected it around its hand in a barely controlled, seething mass of glowing power.

Hidden deep in his armor, Skulker shivered. He could almost hear the universe shrieking in pain at the haphazard techniques the ghost-child was using. Was the boy deaf as well as heavy-handed? Even the Box Ghost and Klemper were light-years ahead of this child. "Enough." _Enough. _

The demi-ghost took a menacing step forwards as Skulker pulled the trigger on large energy gun. As the young ghost was kept busy deflecting the gun's blast, Skulker pushed the button on the side of his arm, simultaneously shooting several missiles and setting off the special containment device he'd created. As expected, the boy dodged the missiles – which were serving little more than a distraction – and came straight towards him. Almost faster than Skulker could follow, the child ran headlong into the new gadget and was sucked inside.

In the intense silence that followed the clang of the thermos-like device hitting the ground, Skulker looked around and then stared down at the machine that was holding the dangerous ghost-child. "That was too easy," he murmured, taking a few steps forwards to pick it up.

Just before his fingers closed around the device, it began to smoke and shake. Reality itself began to complain as energy built up around the small mechanism, flaring green and sparking, and Skulker's eyes widened. "Oh, no…"

He pulled his hand back and activated his jetpack, but he wasn't fast enough. The container's explosion shook the entire town, tiny grains of shrapnel pinging into Skulker's robotic body. The shockwave blew out nearby windows and sent Skulker tumbling through the air to slam into a nearby building. He fell a few feet before his suit kicked in. Halting his fall in midair and twisting around, he glanced down into the fizzling smoke, waiting for the ghost-child to reappear.

A short breeze blew the worst of the smoke away, leaving a rather impressive crater in the middle of the street, but the young ghost was nowhere to be seen. Skulker cursed softly, calling up his tracking software and searching for his prey's signature. Where was it?

The tracker beeped and flashed the results on the small screen. Skulker only had time to read it and close his eyes, furious with himself, before the child ran straight into him. Its hands were flaring wildly with uncontrolled energy, tearing rents in the fabric of the universe as its fingers stabbed straight through Skulker's armor.

"Enough of this!" it screamed at him, managing to yank on one of Skulker's arms hard enough to pull it completely out of its socket. "Stop hunting me!"

"Never," Skulker growled back, activating as many of his suit's systems as possible. Tracking missiles shot into the air and a flickering ghost shield slammed into life in an attempt to pry the ghost-child off of him. "Get off me."

Nothing was working. The whelp was truly furious this time, energy slashing into Skulker over and over. His already-battered suit was taking the blasts of power well, but warning sirens were going off for almost every system. It would only be a matter of moments before the trusted robotic body gave out and shut down. There was simply nothing in his arsenal that could deal with the power level of the creature he was hunting.

In a last-ditch effort to try to catch the young ghost off guard, Skulker activated his self-destruct and dropped out of the suit. He counted down quietly in his head, scowling when the flash and thunder of his suit's destruction echoed overhead. "I liked that suit," he muttered darkly. Then he looked up, watching small bits rain down around him. Hopefully he had caught the child by surprise, caused enough damage that he could come back with a new suit and catch it later.

No such luck, however. It swirled down through the suit's remains, shimmering green eyes focused straight on Skulker's tiny falling form. "Fool me once," it snarled, yanking out that annoying thermos it always carried around. "I fell for that trick last time. Never again."

Skulker sighed, looking away as the blue light appeared around him and sucked him inside the thermos. He had lost. Again.

But he'd win next time. For the sake of two worlds, he had to capture the creature that called itself Danny Phantom.

* * *

Uploaded October 28, 2009  
You ready for NaNoWriMo?  
Thanks for reading!


	48. Bottomless Thermos

_Hey, look, it's something new! Vaguely AU, but I've been told it's plausible. I don't know the /real/ DP storyline very well, so buggers on any plot issues. :)  
_

* * *

**Bottomless Thermos**  
A Danny Phantom Fanfiction by Cordria

* * *

When Danny was thirteen, you would have been hard-pressed to find someone who cared less about what his parents were doing. He wouldn't have been able to tell you the difference between his parents' crazy inventions if his life depended on it. The 'Ghost Gabber' and the 'Ghost Portal' and the 'Fenton Finder' all kind of swirled together in his brain in a mess of junk that fit under the category of 'too stupid to even attempt to remember'. Somewhere deep inside, Danny knew that his parents were geniuses and were creating the next generation of technology right under his feet... but that knowledge fit neatly in between 'remember to take out the trash' and 'don't track mud on the kitchen floor' and was subsequently forgotten almost as soon as it was remembered.

That changed, rather abruptly, the September of his freshman year of high school. He received a first-hand glimpse of what the difference was between a malfunctioning Ghost Gabber and a loose wire on a Ghost Portal, and it was something that he wasn't soon going to forget. Seemingly trying to add insult to injury, it didn't take more than a few run-ins with the various techno-baubles in his parents' laboratory before Danny realized that he needed to pay a bit more attention to what Maddie and Jack Fenton were doing. Nine out of ten of the inventions never really worked, but Danny put a bit more of his mind into remembering which thing was supposed to do what, even it if was for no other reason than pure self-preservation (and to stop himself from being hit on the head by stupidly named inventions).

It took only a month or two before Danny graduated from simply grouping things into 'must avoid' and 'don't worry about it' categories to stealthy sabotage. His parents were very successful at what they were doing now that the ghosts were out in force and the house quickly filled with too many inventions to simply avoid all the ones that would hurt, maim, or destroy him. A few clipped wires here or there, some batteries stolen and buried fifty feet underground, and a few inventions that were 'accidentally' dropped from a hundred-something feet up in the air to land on a carefully placed rock... and pretty soon Danny was able to walk around his house without worrying too much about death lurking around every corner. Unfortunately, the more Danny broke, the more suspicious his parents became about their inventions breaking, and before Danny really knew what had happened, the second hallway bathroom had become a weapons vault and Danny was sharing a bathroom with his sister.

A few days of fuming about the evilness of his parents lead Danny to realize he needed to change his ways, if only slightly. Sabotage was still a viable solution to his problem - surely it was better than admitting the truth to his parents - he just needed to be more sneaky. His parents had obviously decided that a ghost was breaking their inventions on purpose (which wasn't far from the truth); he needed them to be clueless about why their things weren't working. The next invention that needed to cease working, some odd thing his dad had christened the 'Ghost Snapper', had its battery carefully removed, the screws quietly undone, and one small soldered connection carefully broken. The screws were replaced, the battery clicked back in place, and the whip-like invention set back exactly where Danny had found it. Jack had been heart-broken the next day - and for weeks afterwards as he couldn't get the thing to work again - but Danny was pleased.

It was almost inevitable from that point on. The more complicated his parents' inventions grew, the more adept Danny had to become to disable them. He never would have admitted it to anyone, but he had quite a stack of tools and technical manuals stuffed between the studs of his wall. When he wasn't up at midnight chasing some lame ghost away from his room so he could sleep, he was up studying circuits and blueprints under a flashlight as he attempted to break the latest gizmo his father had come up with. Slowly but surely, Danny's prowess with the mechanical side of his parents' career grew... and so, almost inevitably, did his interest in it.

December bloomed, warm and snowless that year. While the rest of the world buzzed about some new singer coming to town, Danny didn't even notice. With a little help from his parents, a bucketful full of lies to keep them from knowing what he was really doing, and a lot of work on his own, Danny actually designed and created his own little invention. It wasn't anything new - he just took the parts from an old set of walk-and-talks and added in a noise-cancelling feature he bought off eBay - but he was rather proud of himself. When the popular new singer turned out to be a siren bent on world-domination, he pawned the things off as 'Fenton Phones' that his parents had made.

He still couldn't believe his friends had bought that one. They were usually great at picking through his lies and cornering him on them. Neither of his parents owned a cell phone, the only reason they had a car phone was because his father wanted to be able to call the President if he ever caught a ghost (it had never been used), and it was really illogical to think that they would invent something that was little more than a cell phone with a ghost filter. Yet Sam, Tucker, and later Jazz all took the story hook, line, and sinker. Perhaps it was for the same reason that nobody ever figured out he was a ghost - it simply didn't fall into their line of thought or 'that could possibly be true'.

As the months went on, Danny quietly kept up with his game of sabotage, lies, and occasional inventing. He even got a small rocket ship working at one point, its lights blinking hurriedly and an almost-silent ghost-powered engine glowing an eerie green in the dark. He was all set to turn the thing into a remote controlled rocket with an attached wireless camera to spy on Paulina when a new issue arose.

His father, without warning his son, removed an essential bit of the Ghost Portal – the part where he screwed in his Fenton Thermos to release the ghosts. Apparently the male genius of the household had finally decided that if his thermoses couldn't capture ghosts, there was no real reason to have a thermos release mechanism on his Ghost Portal. Instead, the portal obviously now required a genetic lock. So, as Jack turned his brain towards designing a genetic locking device, Danny was left with the dilemma of a full Fenton Thermos.

He _could_ go into the Ghost Zone to release the ghosts, but that hardly seemed like a good idea to Danny. None of the ghosts were happy about being sucked into it in the first place, with the possibly exception of Technus. That ghost was so easy to catch, and was caught so often, that Danny often wondered if Technus wasn't getting some sort of enjoyment out of being sucked into a next-generation Thermos. Beyond Technus, however, Danny wasn't incredibly keen on meeting up with the ghosts he had just captured.

It was his mother, bent on his eternal destruction, that leant Danny the idea that he needed to fix his problem. With his Thermos beeping crazily that it was full, Walker and about a dozen of his loyal crew invaded. Danny responded the only way he knew how – with violet force that really didn't work – and it was his mother that eventually came to his rescue. Her latest invention was a small gun that created temporary 'rips' in the barrier between the human and ghost worlds.

It gave Danny an idea. Well, after he'd been framed, tormented, threatened, chased, and gotten a good night's sleep, it gave Danny an idea. He waited patiently, then snuck downstairs and borrowed his mother's new invention with absolutely no intention of returning it when he was done. Under the dim light of his flashlight, Danny carefully and methodically took the entire weapon apart, removing the tiny mechanisms and switches that created temporary ghost portals in the air.

After carefully (and quickly) dumping the latest batch of ghosts into a ghost-proof box with Vlad's address on the front, Danny unscrewed the bottom of the Thermos and wired in the remains of his mother's invention. A few dozen attempts later, Danny had a working Thermos again. Only this time, it had an interesting and new feature.

Or, at least, Danny _hoped_ it had an interesting and new feature. He still needed to test it out.

It was only a few days before that Thermos-loving technology ghost was back, spouting off all sorts of babble about the end of the world, how he was going to rule the universe, and about how even he – even with all his masterful knowledge – couldn't get his VCR to work and had decided that taking over the world and removing the annoying VCRs from existence would probably be an easier task than getting his to stop blinking twelve o'clock. While Danny didn't necessarily disagree with Technus's plans, VCRs were ancient technology that deserved to be replaced by DVRs, he did want to try out his Thermos.

The fight when the way it usually did. Danny caused almost as much damage as Technus did, Technus took over a local electronics store (but, oddly, left all the VCRs in working condition), and together the two left a trail of broken bits of electrical trash and destruction a mile long and two blocks wide. Eventually, Danny managed to knock Technus out of his ghostly-appropriated suit of armor and into the air, aiming his thermos at the overdramatically screeching ghost. With a roll of his eyes, Danny sucked Technus into his Thermos and screwed on the cap.

Landing safely on the ground on not even noticing the damage around him, Danny carefully held the Thermos up to his ear and shook it. There were no oozing ectoplasm sounds; there was no soft screaming. Biting his lip softly, Danny carefully unscrewed the cap and glanced inside.

The Fenton Thermos was empty. His mother's invention, so perfectly wired into the bottom of the Thermos, had been set up to activate at the push of the button on the Thermos. Suck the ghost in as you simultaneously create a tiny ghost portal and you have a bottomless Thermos. Danny couldn't, at that moment, think of anything more awesome in the world, besides the main character from Dead Teacher VI walking down the street to sign an autograph.

He barely noticed when Sam and Tucker – outraged over the littering and the destruction of technology respectively – stormed up to him later that night demanding answers. Danny, who hadn't stuck around to help clean up, nodded sympathetically and promised to never do such a thing again, but he wasn't really listening. Instead, he was already thinking about what he was going to do next.

And it was going to be awesome.

_

* * *

_Uploaded October 30, 2009  
Yes, ended rather abruptly, but it wouldn't _stop writing itself..._ so I just quit.  
And thanks for reading!


	49. Planes

_NaNoWriMo has officially started! For those of you who don't know, it's a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. I'm doing it. Expect few DP updates in the mean time, as I actually /edit/ DP stuff (well, usually anyways) and I don't have time to edit this month._

_If you want to read my original story - which is a sci-fi/fantasy story entitled 'Taboo' - please join me on starting today for (hopefully) daily updates and new chapters. 4,000 words and counting!  
_

_Another old dA journal drabble. ...try two. _

_Chips is gone - it was already uploaded somewhere - and this is the one you guys hadn't read yet. xD_

_

* * *

_

**Planes  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

Danny sluggishly opened his eyes and glanced around the crowded airplane. The man who had just jostled him continued walking, never apologizing for waking up the dozing teenager. Pushing himself more upright and working a kink out of his back, Danny stretched his arms. His back twinged painfully from the cramped seats and he groaned a little, checking his watch. There were still over two hours until the plane was scheduled to land.

Rubbing his eyes and fighting back a yawn, Danny glanced around the mostly-full plane. It was brimming with teenagers – many seemingly playing a 30,000 foot version of musical chairs. Tucker's seat beside him was empty for the moment, the famous red beret visible a few rows further up. Slumping back in his seat, Danny allowed himself a yawn and let his eyes drift back closed.

"A Botany of Desire people, sit down or you're not setting one foot on Hawaii!"

Danny grinned at the sound of his teacher's voice cutting through the soft conversation of the people on the jet. He knew that Lancer wouldn't really follow through with his threat. The past few weeks, the balding teacher had been positively pleasant. Despite the repetitious questions and the unending paperwork, Lancer had smiled more often in the last two weeks than he had in the past two years. Danny personally had at least a dozen detentions that Lancer's newly-found good mood had gotten him out of.

And to make it all better, the whole convoluted trip was Paulina's fault. When the students had started to talk about the yearly class trip, Lancer had physically blanched – along with a number of the students. Memories of the previous year's camping trip were still fresh in everyone's minds. The school staff, headed by Lancer, had quietly quelled all the talk with a simple announcement: the class trip was canceled.

There had been an almost instant rebellion. Lead by Coach Teslaff – who had firmly crossed her arms and demanded that the venerable tradition be continued – they had organized all sorts of meetings. It hadn't taken long for Lancer's group to give in, with the simple caveat that the trip take place nowhere near Amity Park or anything remotely ghostly or haunted.

The very next meeting, pretty Paulina, twirling her hair with a look of shallow confusion on her face, had stood up and said what could have been the stupidest thing she'd ever said: "How about we got to Hawaii? That's far away."

After the general laughter about bringing a class of teenagers to Hawaii, the meeting had disbanded with no decision made. But Paulina's silly suggestion had been seeded and, as the days passed, germinated. It worked its way through the teachers and the administration and, by the time the week was out, it was official. Casper High School was going to Hawaii. Even Sam was admitting, through gritted teeth of course, that Paulina had come up with a good idea.

Fund raising began in earnest milliseconds later. The trip wasn't going to be cheap for the students and many – unlike Paulina – didn't have parents that were willing to toss $1400 towards a school trip. Sam instantly refused to participate in the fundraiser on some moral ground Danny hadn't listened to, but she really didn't need the money anyways. Tucker, with the promise to never call them 'lovebirds' ever again if they would kiss once during lunch, magically managed to secure enough money to go… and a black eye that Danny, after a quick glance towards Sam, never mentioned.

Danny hadn't been nearly as lucky. His parents had steadfastly refused to pay a dime for the trip but, after months of fund raising and extra work on top of his normal activities, Danny had come up quite a bit short. He was days from not being allowed to go and one step from falling on his knees and begging – first from his parents, then Sam – when Lancer had suddenly handed him a slip saying he was paid in full.

Danny knew he hadn't paid enough, but whenever he brought it up, Lancer had glared at him and repeated the simple statement that he'd done the math and he wasn't going to do it again. Danny's account was paid and he could go on the trip. When Sam, Tucker, and his parents denied knowing anything about the mysterious extra money and Vlad had looked honestly shocked at the allegation that he would ever do anything nice for Danny, he'd tried his best to find out where it had come from. To no avail, however, and Danny eventually admitted defeat and gave up the search. It still bothered him, even now that he was on the plane and on his way.

All told, thirty-four students had made it on the trip, along with twelve adults and chaperons. Danny had suffered through a moment of panic when Lancer had proclaimed that anyone with detentions or failing grades wouldn't be allowed to go – and Danny had both at the time – but Lancer had handed over the boarding pass without a word. The only reason, Danny had figured, was because his parents had agreed to chaperon the trip. Ghost detection, defense, and mortal embarrassment wrapped in bright orange and blue and, thankfully, seated almost as far away as possible from Danny.

Slumping down into his small chair and doing his best to fall back to sleep, Danny figured that as long as he could avoid death by embarrassment from his parents, any Hawaiian ghosts, and whatever Dash's latest grudge was, this would be the best vacation ever.

He was nearly asleep when the plane lurched a bit, shaking him awake. He blinked his eyes open to look around, but the ground suddenly fell out from underneath them. Slamming into the seat in front of him and a strange roar filling his ears over the screams of his classmates, Danny's thoughts flew to his family and friends. A hand gripped his arm – whoever had ended up sitting next to him, Danny didn't have time to check – and the plane seemed to simply disintegrate around him.

He opened his mouth to scream, to fly, to do something, but a piece of debris slammed into his head and tossed him into blackness.

* * *

Uploaded November 1, 2009  
Not well edited, sorry.  
Thanks for reading!


	50. Denial

_I have two NaNo stories going. I'm behind on words. I have zero weekends to type._

_And so what am I writing? Drabbles. xD_

_Based on a real conversation I had with a friend yesterday._

_Oh, and I hear I'm just a couple reviews short of the magic 1,000th review! Woohoo! Catch it and you may get something special.  
_

* * *

**Denial**  
A Danny Phantom Fanfiction by Cordria

* * *

It started out as a moment of stupidity.

"Dude," Danny said one day as he was digging his stuff out of his locker to head home. He grabbed a piece of homework and scribbled his English teacher's name on the back. "If you take off the 'r' in Lancer, you get the word 'lance'. As in one of those old spears." Holding up the paper for his friends to see, he grins excitedly. "Neat, huh?"

He was met with two pairs of blinking, rather confused eyes. "You… didn't notice that earlier?" Sam asked after a moment. She shot a glance towards Tucker and a small smile appeared on her face.

"He's not called clueless for nothing," Tucker added, elbowing his friend. "Oblivious as his parents, some days."

"I just… I…" Danny struggled to recover from that, fully realizing that spending three years with the same English teacher and never noticing that his name was lance plus an 'r' did qualify him for a bit oblivious.

Sam leaned forwards and stole his pencil. "You know what's even more neat? If you take his name and rearrange the letters, you can get the word 'learn'… with a 'c' left over." She wrote the word on the page, ignoring Danny's attempts to get his pencil back.

"Or 'rance'," Tucker added with a grin.

"That's not a word," Sam said with a roll of her eyes. "It wasn't a word the first time you came up with it and it's not a word now."

Tucker leaned over the paper to stare her right in the eyes. "Oh yeah? Google it."

"You having put up a website that says 'rance' is a word doesn't count."

"I didn't do it. 'Rance' is a municipality in Switzerland. Everyone knows that."

Danny's head was bouncing from one to the other as his two friends argued. "You've done this before?" he asked, interrupting them long enough to steal his homework and pencil back.

Sam nodded. "When you vanish off to chase some ghost, Tucker and I have to do _something_ other than listen to the teachers talk."

"So one day," Tucker said with a shrug, "we tried to come up with all the words we could make out of Lancer's name. Like 'crane' and 'clean' and," he shot a narrow-eyed glance towards the girl of the group, "'rance'."

"Unfortunately, you can't use all six letters to make a real word. Unlike Coach Teslaf's name." Sam turned to walk out of the building towards their daily destination of the Nasty Burger.

Danny took a few quick steps to catch up to her, his brain working but not being able to come up with a word using the letters of Teslaf's name. "What word?"

"She thinks that 'festal' is a word," Tucker said with a sour note from his spot trailing behind the pair. "But I say that if she gets festal, I get rance."

"Festal," Sam shot over her shoulder, "is a well-accepted word meaning 'feast-like'. Yours, the best you can come with, is a _municipality_ on the other side of the world. If this were Scrabble, it would never count due to the fact that it's a proper name!"

Danny grinned at the thought. "Feast-like? She does eat a lot."

"But the best one we came up with," Tucker said, catching up with a few quick steps and a grin on his face, "is for Faluca." Sam snorted at Tucker's words and bit back a chuckle.

"What?" Danny asked, not for the first time wishing the ghosts didn't ruin his time with his friends. He missed all the good stuff!

"Facula." Sam smiled. "We had just learned it in astronomy. It means-"

"A random bright spot on a planet, I know," Danny said, still blinking in confusion. "I just don't get why it's funny."

Tucker laughed. "Next time you're in math, picture Faluca's head as a planet – it's not hard, it's so big and round – and the bald spot he's trying to cover up as the 'random bright spot'."

This got a grin on Danny's face, a grin that only grew when the teacher in question walked out of a side door, headed towards the parking lot. Now that it was mentioned, his head _did_ have a lot in common with a planet. "That's awesome," he said with a laugh.

"We've made it through almost everyone in the school," Sam said. "I have to say that Valerie was the best, though. Her name turns into 'evil', 'rival', 'vile'… all sorts of words that fit her personality perfectly."

"Hey!" Danny and Tucker said simultaneously. Danny stuffed his hands into his pockets as he walked and muttered, "She's not _that_ bad. Better than Paulina, anyways."

"Plain," Sam said with a chuckle. "Pain."

"Enough, enough," Danny said, waving his hand and trying to change the subject. "You guys are good an mixing up people's names, I get it. Now lay off the pretty girls."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Boys."

Tucker smiled and made sure he was a few steps out of range before he said, "Nothing wrong with looking at girls. What else are they useful for?"

The sharp glare actually got a smile out of both boys, who found themselves laughing as they were chased wildly through town by a violet-eyed female. It was all just a game – Sam could have caught either of the easily if she had truly wanted to. All of them knew that Tucker hadn't meant what he'd said and that Sam wasn't really mad.

But the fun ended rather abruptly when Danny stumbled to a stop, his eyes distant, his breath fogging gently in the autumn air. "Crap," he muttered, annoyed at the always-perfect timing of the ghosts. But even as he was scowling, his heart was starting to beat faster and his adrenaline began coursing through his veins, giving him an intense sort of rush that he loved.

"We'll save you a spot," Sam said, grabbing Danny's ratty backpack and flipping it over her shoulder. "Don't take too long or I won't be able to fend Tucker off your fries."

Danny grinned, a feral glint to his eyes. "He wouldn't dare touch my fries again. Not after last time."

"Fries, never," Tucker muttered, shuddering a little. "You're creepy when you want to be."

Danny glanced over his shoulder, then back at Sam, hesitating. More and more often, the temptation to want to be around his best friend was growing and now he didn't really want to leave. He studied her face, looking for a reason to get to stay here, with her. When she caught his rather intense stare, she flushed a little, but didn't lower her gaze.

"Either kiss her or leave," Tucker said finally. Both of them snapped out of it, Danny blushing brightly while Sam looked furious. "Silly lovebirds."

Turning to walk way, Danny made sure to stop next to Tucker and whisper, "You'll regret that comment," before he vanished into thin air.

With the air of a friend who got threatened daily, if not more often, Tucker shrugged it off and promptly forgot Danny's words. The other boy wouldn't really remember the promise later either. "You ever going to tell him you love him?" Tucker wondered to the dark-haired girl.

She shot him a glare, but didn't answer. Tucker already knew the answer anyways, and it was 'no'. Twisting on her heel, she started towards the Nasty Burger, intent on getting her strawberry soy low-fat milkshake.

Tucker caught up to her and fell into step, already reaching into his pocket for his PDA to scan the local news feeds for word on what Danny was up to. "And next time we see him, let's tell him what word _his_ name makes if you rearrange the letters."

_

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_Uploaded November 4, 2009  
To those who didn't catch it: Daniel = Denial  
Thanks for reading!


	51. The God Machine

_AnneriaWings caught the thousandth review... but this isn't her prize. Was originally going to be, but doesn't fit the bill. I got too distracted going off on a tangent I wasn't expecting. ^^; Next one, maybe._

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**The God Machine  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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Danny looked up from the blinking television, a strange look crossing his face and a shiver running down his back. His head turned slightly, studying the doorway that lead to the kitchen (and thus to his parents' basement laboratory), but nothing could be seen. Then, with a shrug, he turned back to his show and settled deeper into the cushions.

_It_ happened again. He couldn't put his finger on what _it_ was – it wasn't a sound or a sight or anything simple – but it was definitely distracting. He glared over at the kitchen door but didn't bother to get up from his warm, comfortable spot on the couch. For the first time in a long while he had total control of the television on a Saturday and he was going to watch-

There _it_ was again. Like a strange pulsing against his consciousness, it was starting to come every minute or so, completely throwing off his ability to focus on his fourth-favorite television show of all time.

Finally, with a scowl, Danny pushed himself off the couch and stalked towards his parents' lab. He was going to figure out what this _thing_ was, then he was going to be able to go back to his life of ignoring what his parents were doing. Tramping down the stairs with a bit more noise than normal, Danny hesitated at the bottom of the stairs and did his normal sweep of the lab for anything dangerous before edging his way over to where his mother was standing.

"Good morning, Sweetie," his mother greeted softly, staring down at a sheet of numbers and graphs. "Nice to see you up before lunch for once." A smile flickered across her face and she glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes.

Danny returned the smile with a vague grin of his own, looking over his parents' latest experiment. "What are you doing?"

"Why don't you stay and watch for a few minutes and you'll see?"

With a quirk of his eyebrow, Danny stepped forward and studied the… was that a mouse? Yes, it really was a mouse. What were his ghost-obsessed parents doing with a _living_ animal? He squatted down and stared at the poor creature.

It was standing in a pool of ectoplasm, tail raised high to keep it clean, its front paws scrambling goo-ily at the glass of its cage in a bid for escape. Frantic eyes met his, the mouse's whiskers moving back and forth, and it seemed to plead with him for a way out.

Danny glanced at his parents, then back at the mouse. It would only take a brush of his hand against the glass – the smallest smear of energy to turn a patch of the glass intangible, and _oops_ the mouse would be free. They'd never know it was him-

"Don't touch that," his mother chided.

Pulling his hand back, Danny shot her a look. "I wasn't going to-"

"The cage has got an electric field around it," she continued, almost as if he hadn't spoken. "You would have gotten quite a shock."

About halfway through her last sentence, _it_ happened. Danny's head jerked from his mother to the machine poised behind her, ignoring whatever else she was saying. Large and imposing, the thing was a cascade of blinking lights and whirring electronics. Whatever _it _was, _it_ had come from that machine.

What was _it_?

Danny got to his feet and walked up to the large thing, nearly tripping over the cables that were running from the machine to the table the mouse and cage were perched on. His hand gently touched the side of the machine, but he had to jerk his hand away from it after only a moment. The thing was _buzzing _against his nerves in a way that was actually painful. "What is this?" he said, not entirely aware he'd said it aloud.

"It's what we've been working on for months!" The booming voice came from beneath the contraption. Jack pocked his head out and grinned up at his son. "And we're finally done with it!"

"If this works," Maddie said softly, "this will revolutionize paranormal science forever."

Suddenly Danny felt his stomach drop. This was almost the _exact_ same speech he'd been given before the last 'revolution in paranormal science' was turned on._ That_ revolutionary machine had half killed him and nearly succeeded in ruining his entire existence. "Excellent," he said softly.

"You've got to watch this," Jack said excitedly as he crawled out from under the machine and brushed his oil-slicked hands on his pants. "History in the making."

_It_ washed out of the machine again, causing Danny to jump slightly and make his eyes focus on the large invention. He finally made the decision he didn't like _it_ – this last... whatever it was... had almost felt like burning against his mind. And if he didn't like _it_, then this machine turning on wasn't going to be any better. "I'm gonna go-"

"Nonsense!" Jack bellowed, grabbing his son around the shoulders and holding him in place. "This will just take a second."

"Are you sure everything is right this time?" Maddie asked, flipping through her pile of papers one last time.

"It's perfect," Jack proclaimed, grinning when his wife gave in with a nod and set down her papers. "Watch, Danny," he said.

Danny couldn't help but watch, trapped as he was. He watched as his mother turned a few dials on the machine, set a few knobs in the right place, and then held her finger over the button. A smile was on her face – one of happy contentment.

The mouse squeaked pitifully and scrabbled at the glass, almost like it had a clue what was coming.

"The electrical current around the mouse is set to just the right amperage and voltage," Jack narrated, his eyes almost glowing. "It took us forever to find the right settings. But, when in combination with the ectoplasm, the right kind of charge, and enough ectoplasmic energy…"

His mother's finger pressed down on the button and the machine screamed to life. _It_ flowed out of the device in constant waves, slamming into Danny's head and causing him to flinch and push against his father's arms. Glowing green energy coiled down wires, sped through the cables on the ground, and slammed into the cage sitting on the table. The entire glass cage lit up like a small sun, the painful scream of the lab mouse almost unheard over the sound of his parents' invention.

Danny stared at the cage in horror, his mind full of images of when almost the exact same thing had happened to _him_. He could vividly remember the pain of it all, the way the world _changed_ in that second, the terror of the next few weeks as he tried to deal with what had happened.

The light vanished after only a moment, leaving a glowing mouse-like ghost lying on the floor of the cage, a small puddle of ectoplasm still lingering here and there. The ghost mouse wasn't moving.

"You killed it," Danny managed to get out, his mouth dry and flares of memory still coursing through his mind. He blinked away an image of seeing himself in the mirror for the first time and straightened a little.

"That's the best part," Jack said, his eyes focused intently on the mouse. Danny shot him a wide-eyed look, but just as neither parent had noticed his reaction earlier, neither noticed now. Jack smiled and continued staring into the cage. "We didn't."

Danny's forehead wrinkled. He was about to ask what that meant, but the ghost mouse stirred. All three sets of eyes fixed on the glowing creature as it opened twin glowing emeralds and clumsily got to its feet. The mouse made a pained sound, stumbled a few inches forwards, and phased through the bottom of its cage to land on the ground with an agonized squeak.

Both of his parents crouched down, his mother reaching out to poke the small mouse. "Come on," she said softly.

The mouse pushed itself to its feet and took a few steps away from Maddie's hands before collapsing, panting desperately, its eyes closed and its muscles shaking. Then, to Danny's disbelieving eyes and his parents growing smiles, a glowing light appeared to flash over the ghost mouse, leaving it unconscious.

And back to normal.

Danny's legs felt like jelly as he slowly sank to the ground, staring at the mouse. The ghost mouse. The half-ghost mouse. "What?" he managed to say.

"It's not dead, Sweetie," his mother said, carefully scooping up the mouse. "I'm sorry, I should have explained that better beforehand." She carried the half-ghost mouse over to him and held it out for his inspection. "See? He's just fine."

"But… but…" Danny switched his gaze from the mouse to his parents and back, not entirely sure what he was trying to say but knowing he wanted to say _something_.

"We figured out that it would theoretically possible to combine living genetic material with the ectoplasm of the ghost world," she said softly, settling down next to him after handing the mouse to Jack. "Think about all the applications that could have," she said with a smile. "Could you imagine a whole world full of people that could fly? Turn invisible? Walk through walls?"

Danny had – numerous times in his dreams and during exceptionally boring English lessons. And, as usual, his parents were seeing the world through their science goggles, not through reality. "People that could steal anything anytime. Walk right into homes without knocking. Possess other people to get what they want," Danny said, a little dully.

It was one of the many reasons why he'd never told his parents about what had happened to him. They would, in their way, see all the positive things. They could see all the good things that good people could do with it… and completely overlook all the bad things that not-perfect people _would_ do with it. It was one of the first lessons Vlad had ever taught him: ghost powers were not for everyone and needed to remain a secret. Even from the good people in the world.

His mother chuckled a little. "Stop being so gloomy," she said. "There's still some steps to take, a lot more tests… but imagine the day when we can perform this on human beings. _Human_ ghosts. People will all that power, but with human principles and morals."

The mouse was carefully tucked away in a special cage – one that it wouldn't be able to get out of either living or as a ghost. The top was snicked in place just as his parents' new invention let out another wave of _it_.

Danny shivered, knowing exactly what _it_ was now. _It_ was the energy that had created him. _It_ was the thing that would change the entire universe.

"It's a _good_ thing, Danny," she said, squeezing his shoulder and getting to her feet. "Trust me."

Armies of half-ghosts. Cities of people that had too much power for their minds to handle. A world full of half-ghosts that saw themselves as more than they were – better than normal humans, just like Vlad did.

Nobody could withstand the draw of power. He wouldn't have, not without Clockwork's intervention and recurring nightmares of what had(n't) happened.

This wasn't going to turn out well.

Inside the cage, the half-ghost mouse shifted a little, tucking its tail closer, unaware of how monumentally different the world suddenly was. When the machine let out another wave of that supernatural energy, both Danny and the mouse (and two other half-ghosts miles away) shivered.

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Uploaded January 10, 2010  
Just four days until I'm 27!! Yay?  
Thanks for reading.


	52. Trust Me

**_Please Read: _**_I'm trying to submit one of my stories into a short story collection being published. So excited!  
_

___I'm getting published this year, I promise you!_ Maybe not this one, and maybe not the next one, but I'm submitting at least one thing every month somewhere and eventually I have to make it into something!  


_I would __really_ like some comments on it beforehand so it's the best I can give. Review, PM, or email me if you are interested in reading it. I will PM/email it to _**anyone**_ who wishes to read (and hopefully comment, but it's not required).

_Seriously looking for constructive feedback, but just happy comments is good too._

_Deadline is March 1st, so please?_

_Genre: creative nonfic (autobiographical - which means **not** fanfic)  
Word limit: 1,000  
Title: 'Closet Memoir' (maybe - subject to change)_

**_THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!_**

**_--  
_**

_To they who said I can't write a short drabble... I give you a story in exactly 300 words._

_

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_

**Trust Me  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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"Do you trust me?"

They were the worst four words I've ever heard anyone say. Following on the heels of those four words was usually one of the worst experiences of your life. Jumping out of a plane, eating something that makes you sick for weeks, almost being eaten by something large, green, and slobbering… take your pick.

When standing on the edge of a cliff at night, rocks crumbling under your heels, nowhere else to run, it is _not_ something you want your best friend to be muttering. Of course, whatever he was planning was probably better than what would happen if I chose to do nothing.

So despite my head screaming "NO!", I nodded. Unable to tear my eyes away from the glowing eyes and dripping fangs inches from my face, I hoped that his plan was quick in coming. I braced myself for horror just as two hands slammed into me, pushing me over.

Not over the edge as I had been mostly expecting though. I sprawled on the ground at the canyon's rim just as the large bear-like creature roared and sprang forwards. I felt its fur, heard the roar of its breath and the whistling of the air through its claws.

Then all was silent.

I was back to my feet almost as quickly as I'd fallen, already spinning around. The bear was gone – but so was my best friend. I scrambled forwards and gazed over the edge, unable to catch even a hint of the monster's fur through the moonless night. "Danny?" I whispered, staring down into the abyss.

A roar echoed up through the canyon and I shuddered. "DANNY!" I screamed, my fingers digging into the rock at the edge of the cliff, my heart pounding wildly in my ears.

He didn't answer.

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Uploaded Feb 21, 2010  
Man, how times flies.  
Thanks for reading.


	53. Memory of a Maybe

_ScriptFrenzy! See my dA account (cordria. deviantart. com) for an exclusive DP FanFic in script style. Four new pages of writing every day!_

_Based on a true story. My true story. And, as it's 4:26 in the morning and I'm still not entirely convinced what I saw wasn't real…_

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**Memory of a Maybe  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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April 1  
4:26 am

_riiiing_

_riiiing_

_riiiing_

Hello?

_You've reached the voicemail of the psychiatric offices or Dr. Spectra and Associates. We are not available to take-_

Damn it.

_-this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911. Otherwise, leave a message and-_

Yeah, yeah, I know.

_-your call. Thank you!_

Um, Dr. Spectra?

_beeeeep_

Damn it. Ah… Dr. Spectra? This is… yeah, you know who this is. Who else calls you at four in the freaking morning, right? Yeah, well, it happened again, you know? I was just wondering if I could talk to you. Talk it out, you know, so I could get back to sleep?

But you're not there, are you? That's why the message machine picked up. If you were there, you probably wouldn't take the call anyways. I know how sick of me you are.

Well, um… I'll just talk to the machine. You can listen to this when you get the chance, maybe call me back? I'd really appreciate it. It can't wait until morning, I'm already forgetting what happened and I know it's really important. I'd write it down if I could, but you know me…

It's about… about… that ghost kid. You know, the one you're always asking me about? I think… I think I just saw him. In my bedroom.

I know you're probably rolling your eyes, but I seriously did. Or at least I think I did. He was just here! I swear!

See, it was really cold – freezing cold, like I'd forgotten to close the freezer door. I was huddled under blankets and I'd gotten up a few times to make sure I'd remembered to close my window. You know how nice it was yesterday? I opened my window to let in some fresh air. And it still gets really cold at night, so I figured maybe it was open.

Um… it wasn't. Open. So I just went back to sleep, right? Only I never really got back to sleep after I realized it was so cold. My whole apartment was kind of creepy. I get those pictures in my mind, you know that. Axe murderers and crazy rapists and giant bullmastiffs and things, and I couldn't sleep with them in there.

I know, I know, I should have called you then. But I couldn't get out of bed to get the phone. There was something strange in my apartment.

You'd be proud of me though, Dr. Spectra. I think I did get some sleep at one point. A lot of time passed between glances at my alarm clock. Maybe I was still asleep when it happened. Maybe it really didn't happen at all and I'm just a crazy person talking to an answering machine. That's possible.

Especially since I already know I'm crazy. But you wanted to hear this… I think.

Anyways, I was in that fuzzy half-asleep state when sometimes you think you see things that aren't really there. Have you ever experienced that? I get it all the time. Sometimes I wonder if that's the only time you can really see things and people just convinced themselves that it's not real later.

I heard my name being called. _Mine_, my name. It was this echoing, distant sound, like someone was calling at me from a long ways away, which didn't make sense because my bedroom's really kind of small. But I rolled over and looked up to see who it was.

It was this kid, moving side-to-side next to my bed. He was moving really weirdly, Dr. Spectra. This strange motion that stole away the features on him for a moment when he moved before they solidified again. And there's no way his feet could have been touching the ground because nobody who was walking could move that quickly and smoothly.

You know I don't have any kids, so I should have wondered, but it just made sense at the time. There was a teenager standing over my bed and saying my name, just like I used to do to my parents when I wasn't feeling well.

The poor kid looked half-asleep. I remember his white hair was dangling in his green eyes and a yawn looked like it was going to break out of him any moment. But this is the weird part, Dr. Spectra: I can barely remember what he looked like, his face and body. I know he had white hair and green eyes. And black clothes… but what the style was is already gone; I don't remember it. It's like a dream that's fading almost as fast as it happened.

I _saw_ him, Dr. Spectra, but I couldn't pick him out of a crowd anymore and it's only been ten minutes! The pictures are all gone from my head. Isn't that weird?

I think I was supposed to be afraid of those green eyes. I remember, in those moments when he was staring at me, that they were inhuman and terrifying. I _knew_ I should have been scared of them, to huddle away in my blankets and beg to be left alone.

But I didn't. There's something wrong with me, Dr. Spectra. I looked into those eyes and I saw something, something I can't ever explain, and I wasn't afraid. I knew that I was supposed to be afraid… but not of this kid. Not scared of _him_.

He spoke to me. "Can I use your bathroom?"

Had I been truly awake, I probably would have wondered why this strange ghost-kid was asking me a question like that. Of course he couldn't use my bathroom, he was a ghost and a stranger. But I nodded, Dr. Spectra. Why did I do that?

…I actually talked to him. I'm probably one of the few people on the planet who can say they've talked to a ghost – the ghost-kid Phantom, nonetheless. I can't believe I actually said something to him, and it was something so stupid too. "What are you doing out of bed, it's four in the morning?"

Can you believe I said that? How stupid am I?

The ghost shook his head, didn't even answer my question. But maybe ghosts don't really pay attention to us humans. Maybe he didn't hear what I said at all. "I just need to use your bathroom," he insisted, his voice watery and distant. "Can you stay out of it for a few minutes?"

I must have said yes because he vanished – that strange sliding-flying-walking motion – and it was over. He was just gone.

Dr. Spectra I know you'll think I'm crazy, but I wanted to follow him. That can't have been it, there had to be more to it than that. All of this time, all of this work I've done, and it can't be over in some split-second, I'm-not-even-awake-for-it moment!

I didn't follow him though, not at first. I just sat up, wrapping my blankets around me, and stared at the bedroom door. It was closed and I'd never heard it open; the ghost must have walked right through it.

That was when the shock came. I was sitting perfectly still and yet, suddenly, it felt like I'd been zapped by a dozen static shocks all at once. My entire body shuddered and I bit my tongue. You don't think I need to call an ambulance for that, do you? I don't think it's bleeding…

Anyways, that's when I noticed the cold was gone. Remember how I was checking my window? The freezing was just not there. Within seconds, my apartment went from frozen to warm again.

That's when I had to follow him, Dr. Spectra. I had to see what had happened. I walked over to my bedroom door and touched it. It was cold! Really, really cold, like the center of the door was frozen like ice.

When I pushed it open, I swear I saw him, just for a moment. There were two glowing eyes and this white-haired boy sitting in my hallway, fiddling with something silver in his lap. But there wasn't anything really there. Just… like a memory or an image or something.

Dr. Spectra, it's like 4:45 now, and I don't know what to think. Every moment that passes I think more and more that maybe it was just a dream. Just my crazy mind coming up with something I really wanted to see but that wasn't ever there.

You know what the weirdest thing is? Why I chose to call you this morning? I found your business card in my bathroom, Dr. Spectra, and this strange little burn-

_beeeeep_

_The voice mailbox you are calling has reached its limit. Please hang up and dial again._

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Uploaded April 1, 2010  
This ghost in my half-dream this morning was about eight-nine years old, African-American,  
and wore yellow-checkered flannel PJs. It was weird. It was very very weird.  
Thanks for reading.


	54. Apprentice

_OMG YES!_

_To those of you who haven't heard:_

_I'M BEING PUBLISHED! In an actual book that actually makes money! xD_

_For more information: http: // cordria. deviantart. com/ journal/ 31452127/ (delete the spaces)_

_

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_

**Apprentice  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

Based on the story 'Apprenticeship' by WingsOfMorphius  
(Don't kill me, Wings, if you read this)

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The phantom was strong, but this ghost was just too powerful. No matter what tricks he tried or how fast he moved or how distracting his chatter got, the huge ghost refused to relinquish the top spot in the fight.

She was watching from the ground, her eyes wide as she tracked both ghosts in the sky, her fingers tightening and loosening on the grip of the ectogun she was carrying. Could she make a shot from this distance? Possibly, but only at the risk of hitting the wrong spirit.

Silently willing the phantom to taunt the other ghost closer, she started to creep towards the fight. Darting from garbage bin to shadowed alley to parked car, she made her way unobserved by either ghost. When she finally stopped and rested her elbows on the trunk of an abandoned car, she aimed her gun at the bluish dragon coiled around the top of the Amity Clock. Was she close enough now?

Wait... where'd the ghost go?

Something dripped on her hand, so cold it burned as it evaporated into the night sky. She hissed and rubbed her hand furiously on her leg. After examining the small ectoplasm burn wound, for once wishing she had one of those glaring jumpsuits the Fentons insisted on wearing, she hesitated and looked straight up.

The phantom was hovering overhead, the normally steady glow of his body flickering and pulsing dimly. Almost like a heartbeat, she noticed with a surprised blink, then watched as he desperately dove out of the way of the sweep of the dragon-ghost's tail.

It hit her then, in a way that slammed straight to her gut and caused an almost physical pain: the phantom was loosing. This wasn't a fight. This was a desperate attempt at survival.

Her eyes narrowed and she set her teeth, raising the weapon as she watched the dragon laugh and chase the phantom through the sky. "This is what I trained for," she whispered, putting the ghost in the crosshairs and pulling the trigger to the halfway point. The ectogun whined desperately as it built up a charge, a small LED light near the sight blinking lazily for a moment before flaring to full brilliance. She was ready to fire.

"Come on," she hissed, the phantom darting anxiously from side to side as he tried to avoid getting hit. "Move it." She couldn't fire and risk hitting the heroic ghost, not with this weapon.

The dragon roared, its eyes narrowing in a mimicry of frustration as it was unable to land another blow. Blue light started to condense around the ghost, making it glow. It took only a moment for the ghost to be a second moon in the sky, wings outstretched, its voice still echoing eerily in the dark night. The stars vanished under the ghost's brilliance, the moon slowly starting to fade away as well.

She swore softly, her hands trembling slightly but her ectogun staying focused on the ghost. She didn't know what was happening, but it surely couldn't be good.

The phantom seemed to have a similar idea, his shape, almost invisible in the glow, darting away from dragon. He grew bigger in the sight of her gun the closer he got, she finally realizing he was flying straight towards her. Did he know she was there?

The release of the bent-up energy caused the world to shake. If she wouldn't have been braced against the car she would have stumbled to her knees. As it was, she had to raise her head or risk bashing her head on the ectogun. Moments later she had the gun back to her eye.

Now was the time to fire. Paying no attention to the phantom still streaking towards her or the wave of energy the dragon had released, she aimed and fired at the ghost's head. It sliced through the air, barely missing her phantom, straight on course.

Raising her head, her eyes focused on the phantom just as the blast of energy from the dragon slammed into him. "NO!" she screamed as she saw his eyes widen in sudden pain. The phantom was tossed a bit through the air... then he started to disintegrate. His fingers and feet were gone in an eerie swirl of light, followed by his arms and legs, then his stomach and chest, and finally his brilliant white hair and green eyes.

Behind the phantom, her shot hit the dragon-ghost right between the eyes. The dragon's blue ectoplasm reacted with the ionized chemicals in her ectoweapon and it dissolved, freezing and evaporating ectoplasm cascading down from the sky in a deadly rainstorm.

But her eyes were trapped on the spot where she'd last seen her glowing ghost. Her scream had barely left her throat when she heard the sound of something heavy and solid hitting the ground, heard it roll a few feet. Eyes finally adjusting back to the darkness, she could see the shape on the ground only a dozen feet away.

"Phantom?" she breathed, dropping the gun and racing to his side. She rolled the ghost onto his back, wincing at the burns and the cuts. A nasty gash on his side was making a pool of blood on the ground, huge rips and burns in his arm and leg evidence on him hitting the ground hard.

She pulled back in surprise when she finally had the phantom on his back. Black hair, not white. Familiar features. A white shirt, bloodied but very recognizable. "Danny Fenton?" she hissed.

Her mind was whirling. Had her phantom been carrying him? She hadn't seen...

But in a fight, would she have seen?

Danny moaned and twitched a little, one of his eyes opening ever so slightly. Green still sparkled in the irises of his eyes as he gazed blearily in her direction. His breath was hitching in his throat; he was obviously in pain.

Only now did she think to scramble for her phone. He needed help - she needed to call Mrs. Fenton and find out what to do. They hadn't covered _this_ in her lessons.

Although she'd been convinced he was too hurt to move, his hand came up to grab hers as she held her cellphone, blood dripping onto her arm. The other eye opened and he blinked a few times, struggling to focus on her.

"I'm calling your mom, Danny," she said. "You're hurt."

"Ghost?" he breathed.

She leaned a little closer, gazing into his blue eyes - which, eerily, still held a few motes of green. "Gone. I shot it."

His eyes finally seemed to lock on hers, widening as he realized who it was he was talking to. His body jerked like he'd tried to sit up, but he was simply too hurt to do anything but lay there, so he settled on staring at her in blank amazement. "Paulina?"

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Uploaded April 8, 2010  
Sorry I forget to update here sometimes, you really should all follow me on dA. :)  
Thanks for reading.


	55. Death

_Sorry I'm kind of ignoring this site... a couple of things for you previously uploaded elsewhere. I'll try to be better about being online here and sticking up new stuff. :) I have it hiding somewhere.  
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**(death)  
**_A Danny Phantom FanFic by Cordria_

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_She was sitting at the top of the steps, her elbows on her knees, an ectoweapon loose in her hands and her head resting tiredly against the wall. Eyes unfocused, she stared down the steps, her mind a million miles away. There weren't any tears – not at the moment, anyways. But she was sure they'd be back.

A cold trickle of air blew down her spine and her eyes closed, exhaustion and an expression of intense sadness settling onto her face. It was back. Again.

"Mom?"

She refused to open her eyes, refused to answer, refused to even acknowledge the creature next to her. It wasn't her son anymore.

"Come on, Mom, please," her son's voice pleaded.

She felt a hand touch her shoulder, but other than her fingers tightening into a death-grip on the small gun, she didn't react. Staying perfectly still, she forced her mind to think of other things. Her mind instantly jumped to his last birthday party – how he'd smiled and laughed, how alive he'd been, how much she loved him – and the tears started to appear in her eyes again. She'd never see that again.

The hand left, the creature next to her sighing. "Don't be sad. Just look at me." A stair tread creaked, bits of air moving as it changed positions to crouch in front of her. "Open your eyes, Mom. I'm okay. I'm human now."

The birthday memory fled, to be replaced – like it always did – by that memory from two weeks ago. The last memory of him she'd ever have. Heart clenching, her throat tightening, the tears that were threatening in her eyes spilling over, she hung onto the ectoweapon like it was the only thing in the world keeping her from falling through the floor or flying to pieces.

She really needed to shoot the thing before her. That's what the ectoweapon was for, after all. It had been modified especially for this one shot. One shot she wanted so desperately to take and one shot she couldn't wrap her mind around having to take. It would be just one shot, though – they'd made sure the frequencies and power of the gun were perfectly aligned. There wouldn't be anything left of this creature.

"Don't cry." Frustration was leaking into the creature's voice. "Mom, I'm not dead. Open your eyes and look at me."

A finger suddenly touched her cheek, brushing at the tears on her face, and she jerked away from it, her eyes opening reflexively. There it was, the thing that used to be her son: blue eyes gazing at her with a sort of internal light, black hair dangling into a familiar face, and a small smile gracing the creature's lips.

"See?" It spread its arms, leaning back on its heels. "There's nothing wrong with me."

And she almost believed. For the past two weeks, she always almost believed it when it said that. It looked so much like her son, it moved the same, it spoke the same, and it laughed the same.

It wasn't, however. It was a ghost. One that refused to leave, insisted on staying to torment her, made sure that now – weeks after her son's death – the wound on her heart was still as fresh as it was that horrible day two weeks previously.

"Go away." Her voice was hoarse and barely audible, pain and sadness scratching through what was left.

The pain that jumped into its eyes almost made her want to take her words back. To pull this creature into a hug and tell it that she believed every word. That it was possible her son was still alive in some half-dead state. Just to have her son back for a day.

But she knew better. So she said it again – a little more firmly. "Go away."

For a second it looked like the creature would, but then its face set and it shook its head. "No. Mom, you have to listen to me, just for a minute!"

"I have listened to you," she said softly, swaying back and forth gently as her emotions roiled in her mind. "Why won't you leave me alone?"

"Because I'm not dead!" The light in the creature's eyes flared brightly, frustration evident on its face. "I told you-"

"My son is dead," she whispered, closing her eyes again and berating herself for talking to this creature. She needed to just shoot it and make it go away forever. Her fingers tightened on the trigger, her arms tensing to move… and then she didn't.

It looked so much like her son. Was it so wrong that she wanted to see him just for a few more minutes? Even if it was this twisted, dead version of him?

"No, I'm not!"

Small sparks of static tingled on her exposed skin as the creature before her stepped over the edge from frustration to anger and its power started to flare. Adrenaline started to pump through her veins, her heart beating faster, her body automatically shifting into fight-or-flight mode.

Always before she had run away. Today, she would stand and fight. No more of this mockery of her son's entire existence. She would raise the gun, aim, and fire.

She just needed to open her eyes to do it and aim at her son's face.

"I was in an accident with the portal. I'm only half-ghost! We've been over this, Mom."

No, she couldn't think like that. Open her eyes and look at this creature that wasn't her son.

"I'm not dead."

All she had to do was open her eyes.

"It's possible. I'm alive. Mom, think about it."

Her eyelids slowly pulled apart. Eyelashes seemed to stick together, blurring her view before the creature came into focus. Its eyes were glowing a brilliant green and anger was twisting its face into something alien.

For a moment, it wasn't her son. She saw through its mask.

Her hands jerked up, the weapon aiming reflexively between its eyes. She saw its eyes widen in surprise and she pulled the trigger…

She pulled the trigger…

"Mom?"

Her hands fell back down into her lap, a long breath escaping from her lungs. Her eyes closed again and the memory flared – the one that tormented her day and night.

She could remember her son's friend sitting in the back of an ambulance, bloody and wrapped in a blanket. She could remember how someone told her that her son was still in the car and how she had run, stumbling on debris on the ground, to the intersection. The two cars were a mangled mess. She'd learn later that the dunk was doing close to seventy miles an hour when she blew through a red light and slammed into her son's car.

The paramedic had moved out of the way when she got there, letting her touch her son. Blood was everywhere. His blue eyes opened for a second, seeing her, and someone told her that he was dying. The car was the only thing keeping him alive and that it wouldn't much longer.

She was whispering how much she loved him and holding his hand when he stopped breathing. Her husband had to pull her away from the remains of the car some time later, wrapping her in his arms as she sobbed and cried. Both of them watched as their son's body was carefully removed from the wreck.

His funeral was eight days ago. He was dead and buried. There wasn't any possibility that he was alive.

"Mom?"

She refused to open her eyes, refused to answer, refused to even acknowledge the creature in front of her. It wasn't her son anymore.

"Come on, Mom, please."

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Uploaded May 25, 2010  
Straight from DeviantArt.  
Thanks for reading!


	56. Banal

_Another dA-upload._

_Want to participate in contests this summer? Check out my deviantART site (_http : / / cordria. deviantart. com/ journal/ 32574099/)_ for more information on how to win some awesome prizes! June contest up and running!  
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**Ba****nal (boringly commonplace or predictable)**  
_A Danny Phantom FanFic by Cordria_

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Staring up at the ceiling through the vague glow of my cage, I'm debating whether or not it's worth it to try to escape yet. In all honestly, I can get out of this shield and these restraints in about two point five seconds. I've seen the specs – they couldn't hold a candle to me if I really wanted to escape.

The problem with escaping is one, my parents will inevitably take it as some sort of challenge and somehow create a shield I _can't_ get through next time and two, there's that nagging worry about collateral damage. I don't have the best control… sometimes, anyways… and my parents are a bit too close for comfort.

"Put that a little more to the left, Jack."

I roll my head to the side and stare straight into the weapon my parents are busily pointing in my direction. You have to understand that when I say 'too close for comfort' I mean it. My mother was literally within that little bubble of space people consider to be 'their's'. I could probably sneeze and ruffle her hair.

"It doesn't need to be a little more to the left," I mutter, letting my head fall back against the table and pulling on the cuffs holding my arms in place. "It's perfect right where it is."

"Shush."

Arching an eyebrow, I wonder at the fact that I've just been shushed by my mother and let my eyes close for a moment. "I don't have to shush; you've tied me to a table," I say. I think I might have even said it aloud, but when I crack an eye open, nobody's looking at me.

I guess I only said it in my head. That's probably a good thing, as I'm tied down with some who-knows-what pointed at my head. Ticking off someone who is already trigger-happy is not high on a list of intelligent things. Ignore anyone who's said I've already done it on multiple occasions.

"Almost… almost… there." The satisfaction in my mother's voice is exactly the same as when she finishes making cookies or something. "It's aimed perfectly. Nicely done, Jack."

"All for you, Mads," my dad says, sweeping my mother into a dramatic kiss. I roll my eyes and yank my arms a little. It's not that I thought my arms would move or the restraints would suddenly be gone – it's just something you _do_. You'd understand if you'd ever been tied up. You just _have_ to try to move your arms. It's like your nose itching the second you can't scratch it.

Damnit. Now my nose itches.

A hand pats my shoulder and I look over at my father. It's almost like he's reassuring himself that he really did catch me. I smile… Okay, fine, the smile's more of a sneer, but I _am_ tied to a table.

He smiles back. His isn't at all a sneer.

"Jack, start the warm-up sequence, please," Mom says, bustling around the computers.

"You got it!" He bounds away from me as I let a sharp breath noisily out my nose. It didn't help the itching.

"It's got to say something," I say with a sigh, letting my eyes rove over the sparkling swirls of the ghost shield over head.

"Say what?"

I blink, startled that someone heard me. I pick my head up, ignoring the ache in my neck from the strange angle, and focus on my father. "My nose itches. That's got to say something."

The man grins and shakes his head. "Someone's walking on your grave."

"Excellently morbid when I'm about to be experimented on," I whisper, my head falling back against the table with a thud. I speak up. "But that's not what I meant. I'm tied to a table with that thing pointed at me," I gesture with my head towards the big thing that got moved imperceptibly to the left, "and I can't stop thinking about my nose itching."

My father's eyes narrow as he thinks about that, then he shrugs. "You're a ghost."

There it is, the Fenton Family Answer to Everything That Confuses Us or Is at All Strange: Ghosts. "How is that an answer for _this_?"

Mom answers. "You can't feel fear. So since you're not preoccupied with emotions, you're free to feel other things. Like your nose itching."

I'm silent for a moment, thinking that through. The one major hole in her theory is that I can feel fear. I feel fear a lot. "No, I don't think that's it."

My nose wrinkles as I try to get rid of the itching. My parents shrug and get back to whatever they're doing, leaving me to contemplate whether or not I should be escaping. On the one hand, if I'm free I'll be able to scratch my nose…

Perhaps I'm just too used to being captured. Is that sad or what?

The weapon next to me starts to whine, the far end of the barrel glowing faintly. I look at it for a moment, then turn to try to see what my parents are doing. My father is leaning over the computer, a crazy grin on his face. Mom's looking over their calculations carefully, biting her lip and her forehead furrowing.

That's when it hits me: I need to go to the bathroom.

The worst part about being captured is the moment you realize you need to use the bathroom. All the moments before this one are punctuated with fear and terror and boredom. All the moments after will have the same on top of an unsettling fullness in your bladder.

I bang the back of my head against the table a few times, scowling. I'm trying to keep my parents from realizing my state as a demi-living creature and the bathroom issue is one of those hot topics I can't bring up without answering too many questions – it ranks up there with eating, sleeping, breathing, and other things ghosts tend to not have to do.

"Stop that, please," my mother says, looking up at me with an annoyed look on her face.

I gaze steadily at her for a long few seconds, trying to decide on a reason why I should listen to her request. But the vague ache starting in the back of my head sends me over onto her side. I set my head gently against the table and let out a frustrated noise.

The mysterious weapon is glowing more and more strongly. My nose itches. I need to pee.

It's time to escape.

"Sorry," I say softly, closing my eyes long enough to gather a huge swell of power inside me. I breathe in and hold it for a moment, feeling the headlong rush of energy inside of me. Then I breathe out and the power surges out of me.

It acts just like a lightning bolt – it slams into the ghost shield and instantly shorts out the circuits in the system. This takes out the energy flowing through the restraints holding my arms and legs in place (Skulker's long since fixed this problem in his traps and now my parents will do the same… darn it). I sit up, phasing through the cuffs, and take a moment to make sure my parents are okay.

The whining of three ectoweapons – two from my mom and one from my dad – informs me that they are just fine and I should make my exit. I get my feet beneath me and leap into the air just as emerald blasts slam into the table.

"See ya!" I shout just before I vanish through the ceiling. I'm slightly too slow; the bottom of one of my feet burns from a lucky shot that grazed my foot before I could pull it to safety.

I'm human again as soon as I hit the living room, slumping into the couch – my aching root propped up on the table – and furiously scratch my nose. "Ahhh…"

My parents burst in seconds later, neither of them noticing that I'm scratching my nose. "Danny!" my father finally shouts, apparently having just noticed me. "Did you see the ghost?"

"Ghost?" I mutter, letting my hand fall from my nose. "What ghost?"

Mom pushes one of her small ectoweapons into my hands, barely glancing at me. "It just escaped. Keep an eye open!"

"I'll do that," I say sourly as they rush from the room to scan the rest of the house. I sit there for a moment longer, my foot throbbing slightly, before my bladder once again makes itself known. I lever myself to my feet and limp in the direction of the bathroom.

I pause in the doorway of the living room and shake my head. "It still has to say something."

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Uploaded June 1, 2010  
Ever think about the boring parts?  
Thanks for reading!


	57. Chemistry

_I've decided to flood your inboxes. FEAR ME! _

_...and my day off from work. /bwa-hahaha!/  
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**Chemistry**  
_A Danny Phantom FanFic by Cordria_

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Danny settled his back against the wall at the top of the bleachers, ready for yet another boring school assembly. "Why do we have to do this again?" he muttered.

"Because our young minds need molding," Sam said as she smoothed out her skirt. For a second, she gazed at the neon-colored posters blazing out anti-smoking, anti-drinking, and anti-drug messages that plastered the walls of the auditorium and screamed through the music playing over the crackling speakers. "Molding with a hammer, apparently."

Danny snorted and scooted a little closer to her, settling his elbow on her shoulders like a human armrest. "Sledgehammers. Big ones."

"What are you doing?" Sam said, pushing at Danny's elbow with a finger.

"Enjoying being taller than you," Danny retorted quickly, but pulled his arm away at the dark look that swirled through Sam's eyes. Putting up his hands, he slid back to his original spot. "Don't blame me for being short-challenged. I have a movement, remember?"

When Danny pointed at his backpack in defense, the largest button reading 'Pity the Short-Challenged!', Sam shook her head and scowled. "That is the world's stupidest protest."

"And yet," Danny said with a smile, "more people showed up for my protest than your thing about those plastic flamingos."

"Those things are evil!"

Tucker suddenly appeared in front of them. "I heard evil," he said as he dropped into the empty seat between the two teenagers. "Is someone talking about moi?"

"Nope." Danny shook his head and chuckled. "Flamingos."

"Ah yes," Tucker agreed with a wise nod. "Those things _are_ evil. In _other_ news…" Tucker dug through his backpack and pulled out a cigarette lighter.

Danny arched an eyebrow. "Tucker?"

"Check this out." Tucker flicked the lighter once, then twice, then three times… nothing happened. A frown appeared on his face as he flicked it for a fourth time. Finally a small flame flickered into existence. "Cool, huh?"

The other two teens stared at him for a long moment. "What?" Danny finally managed.

"Lighting _that_ at an anti-smoking program _in schoo_l doesn't rank high on your list of smart things you've done," Sam drawled, leaning back against the wall and crossing her arms.

"No, no, no," Tucker muttered, waving his hand. "It's mischmetal! The flint in the lighter – it's mischmetal."

Danny felt a small smile flicker onto his face and he exchanged an arched-eyebrow look with Sam. "And we care… why?"

"Mischmetal has praseodymium in it." Tucker smiled at them, looking as if that should have answered their question.

"Uh-huh." Sam shook her head and put her boots up on the seat before her, turning her attention to the people still filing into the auditorium. "That's an excellent explanation."

"For chemistry," Tucker said sourly. "Our assignment, remember? Praseodymium – element 59."

Danny made a noise in the back of his throat and shook his head. "The bring in an element homework assignment? You actually brought something?"

Tucker blinked at him. "You didn't?"

"Of course I did. I'm bringing in _two_ elements. One part carbon and two parts oxygen." Danny snickered and put his hands behind his head.

"And I brought two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen," Sam added. "We should get extra credit for that."

Tucker was silent for a second, then he let out a short breath of air. "That's cheating!"

"No it's not," Sam and Danny said together, identical grins on their faces. The music playing through the auditorium suddenly cut out and Lancer coughed into the microphone. Sam leaned closer and said, "Remember what we agreed on a couple weeks ago? It's not cheating if it's chemistry."

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Uploaded June 10, 2010  
That was my thought all through school. :)  
Thanks for reading!


	58. What If

**What if...  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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What if…

So many human stories start that way. One simple question – a contemplation of how things could be different – creating a mental obstacle course that very few creatures could make it through. Dogs couldn't, they don't think much on the future or the past. Fish can't, their small minds full of bubbles and waves. Ghosts never do, their minds barely able to grasp the concept of time.

But humans, now they're special. Their brains have evolved in ways barely imaginable, generating an entire species built on sound and rhythm and stories. Humans _invented_ the idea of 'what if' and all the things that went with it. Many of them seem to thrive on it.

Which brings us to this particular story: a 'what if' of rather epic proportions. And, of course, it was a human that thought it up.

"Come on, Danny, what if-"

"I'm sick of this," Danny grouched, crossing his arms over his chest and slinking deeper into his seat in the cafeteria. He normally reserved his lunchtime glare solely for the garbage that was passed off as food, but today he deemed it necessary to share. Switching his darkened gaze from the food to his (rather beautiful) cafeteria partner, Danny made sure to keep his scowl in place. "Why have you done this every lunch period so far this week?"

"Because." The girl leaned forwards, rather unaware of how this changed the angle of her low-dipping shirt and how hard Danny had to work to keep his eyes in place, and stabbed at him with her spork. "What happens if one of these things comes true and you don't know how to deal with it?"

Danny rolled his eyes and took the opportunity to stare up at the ceiling. "I'll just deal with it." When he heard the exasperated snort from his friend, Danny shook his head. "Sam, I've never had an issue with it before. I can handle anything the Ghost Zone decides to throw at me. Besides, it gives me a headache to think about it."

"I don't see why," the black-haired girl said sourly, taking up a bite of her salad and settling back into her chair.

Danny, deeming it safe to look at her again, tried for a small smile as some sort of an apology. He didn't understand why it bothered her so much or why she wanted to think about what was going to happen tomorrow or what had happened last week. What had happened wasn't really important as it was over and what would happen would happen no matter what they said today and he would deal with it when it did. End of story.

"So what if-"

Danny made sure to sigh loudly and sink down as far as possible in his chair to express his exasperation. His eyes barely showing above the battered school table, he examined his human friend. Her unique violet eyes were glaring daggers in his direction, the girl attached to them unable to truly understand the issue behind Danny's reluctance to plan ahead.

It wasn't, as Danny likely would have said if she had asked, because he was a teenage male. And it wasn't, as Sam would probably have assumed, due to Danny's maddeningly persistent overblown ego and generally laid-back personality.

It was, in all honesty, due to the fact that she was human and he… wasn't quite. As we've already gone over, the ability to examine the 'what if' scenario and plan for unforeseen and unpredictable future events is a uniquely human trait.

Danny's mind just couldn't grasp it. "Can we just eat lunch and talk about it later?"

"No. I promised Tucker that we'd get through at least five of these today!" She pushed a piece of paper covered in writing towards Danny with a salad dressing-covered finger. "If you don't want to do the first one, _choose a different one_."

The young demi-human reluctantly reached out and picked up the paper, scanning over the neat handwriting. It was a list of things that might someday happen. "_All_ of these?" Danny said in surprise and dismay. "There's, like, fifty of them." He flipped the paper over to peruse the back. "And some of them are really stupid."

"We need plans," Sam insisted. "We need to have some kind of clue as to what we're going to do if these happen."

"Blow 'em up," Danny muttered quietly, only mildly sarcastic with his answer. His parents' latest invention was some sort of grenade that stuck to the offending ghost like a magnet; that would take care of most of the things on her list.

The sound that came from his friend made him figure that she'd heard his answer and didn't appreciate his sarcasm. When he looked up, her face was set in frustration. "Five, Danny. Why is that such a big deal?"

"It's not," he murmured darkly, returning his eyes to the list. His brain churned as he read the first one: what if Desiree attacks during lunch and nobody can get out of the lunchroom?

The headache forming between his eyes stopped the thread before it really got started, bombarding it with questions. Why would Desiree attack a lunchroom? Wouldn't Skulker be a more likely choice? And how was he supposed to know what he'd do – it all depended on who was where and when the whole thing took place. Had he already made a wish or not? Would she be wearing earplugs?

An image of Desiree wearing earplugs so she couldn't hear his wish popped into Danny's head, essentially derailing any sort of momentum 'just answer the question' had possessed. He chuckled a little, changing the mental picture into those big, fluffy earmuffs and adding on a thick jacket and imagining her being hit with snowballs.

"Danny," Sam said sharply, reaching forwards to snatch the list of his hands.

"What?" he complained. "I was trying!"

"No you weren't."

He reached up to rub at the back of his neck, fully aware of the fact that she was completely right. "It's stupid anyways," he mumbled.

"No it's not!" She scanned down her list and stabbed at on with her finger. "Some of these could really happen! Like… like…" Her eyes flickered back and forth as she read.

"How can I possibly tell you what I'd do if I don't know _exactly _what's going on?" Danny said, finally sitting up in his chair and pushing his food out of his way. "Like the first one. Where's Desiree? How many people are in the room? Where are my parents? Has anyone been hurt? Is she really causing damage or just being a nuisance? Is she right next to me or across the room?"

Sam looked annoyed, the lines in her forehead becoming more noticeable. "I'm not asking for a play-by-play. We just want to know basic strategy so we can help you."

"But it's _pointless! _I can't-"

"Danny, I almost wish," she said, neither of them paying attention to the fact that she was using a forbidden phrase, "these would come true so you'd see my point!"

They were glaring at each other, either unwilling to back down or unable to grasp the point of what they were doing, and they almost missed it. "That's not quite a wish," a voice whispered from just beyond their table, "but I'll take it."

Danny blinked, surprised when Sam's list levitated off the table and exploded into green light. He put his hand up to block the light, wincing and shifting his weight onto his feet. It wasn't so much the eerie glow that had the hairs on the back of his neck standing up, but the tremor of cold that stabbed into his gut. "Sam…" he whined sourly.

"So you have wished it," the whispered voice continued, swirls of smoke starting to condense into a familiar shape, "so shall it be."

"All of them?" Danny said softly, his shoulders sagging as he gazed up into the heartless eyes of the wishing ghost.

Desiree, Sam's hand-written list forming in her hands, scanned the paper and grinned. "That _was_ her wish." A hand came up, bangles jingling, and the cafeteria doors slammed shut with a definite-sounding _blam_. "We'll start at the top. Ooo, did you read number thirty-five?"

"No." Danny pushed himself to his feet, his muscles tensing and his heart starting to race. "What's it say?"

"It doesn't matter," Desiree chuckled. The smirk on her face made her glowing eyes glimmer crazily. "I love humans and their imaginations."

As the humans around him started to panic and race towards the doors, Danny scowled and got ready to defend his school. "I don't."

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Uploaded June 16, 2010  
I love human imaginations. :) Kinda wish I had one somedays...  
Thanks for reading!


	59. Psychovore

_dA uploading...  
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**Psychovore  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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The ghost perched on the light post, his hands grasping the pole but not really using it for balance. It was silly to think the ghost needed ianything/i other than air to stay above the ground, but the ghost had a flair for the theatrical. He'd seen this move in a movie once and enjoyed the drama of being seen like this.

Now he just needed someone to see him. People passed underneath his light post – lots of people – but none of them bothered to look up. Humans were so self-centered and involved in their own little worlds. Aliens could be attacking and wiping out their entire civilization and it could be depended on some humans not ever noticing. It was one of the things he liked about humans, their lack of noticing things.

A psychovore, that's what the last ghost hunter he'd run into had called him. Perhaps the term was correct, but the young ghost really didn't know or care. All he knew is that he was hungry and that humans served a far more tasty meal than rats and cats and bats.

And those humans would never notice if a few of their precious flock when a-missing. They really needed shepherds or something, like those humans in that town over that-a-way. The one ghost watches over them and keeps them in line.

The ghost wondered for a moment if he could do that, if he could keep this town for himself and keep all of his 'flock' safe, but that was when a human caught his eye. Or, more correctly, that's when a human's eye caught him.

He felt the gaze like a shot of pure adrenaline, his eyes starting to glow and a grin slipping onto his face as he scanned the crowds of humans for the hapless one that had finally spotted his lofty perch. He hoped it was a male. Big and strong and wanting to fight back – they made for the best meals. The flimsy, slender ones were barely worth it and the children simply sat and cried.

Eyes met – glowing silver meeting a dim brown. The psychovore felt a sliver of disappointment as he surveyed his next meal. Short, mousy, female. Probably wouldn't put up a fight, undoubtedly would just stand there and stare at him, transfixed by the power of the ghost. Might even start in on those vampire quotes.

Yes, he thrived on human blood and spirits, but no he was not a vampire and he – without any doubt in his mind – in no way sparkled in any way, shape, or form. Stupid humans and their stupid movies.

He landed amongst the humans milling on the sidewalk without even ruffling their jackets. One wrinkled his forehead and looked confused for a second, but then shrugged and went about his dull, human life. The ghost smiled and, his eyes still focused on his vaguely dazed-looking prey, stalked forwards.

"Come here, pretty," he whispered, picking up a limp hand and escorting the girl off the busy street and into one of the darker alleys. He was already reaching tendrils of power into her mind, poking gingerly around for interesting little tidbits.

The more scared the better, once he released her from this enchanted state. She was terrified of bees and heights, and had an extreme dislike for most things yellow. "Interesting," he breathed, pressing her against the dirty alley wall and sniffing at her hair and skin, smelling her soul.

"I'm going to tear out your soul," he told her quietly, staring straight into her brown eyes. His own silver eyes reflected in hers, making her pupils widen. "And I'm to eat it, piece by piece, while you scream in terror. You're going to die surrounded by all things you fear, pretty."

She blinked, swaying slightly back and forth.

The ghost smiled and took a step back, making sure to block her easy exit from the alley. She wouldn't escape; he hadn't let a prey escape him in nearly twenty years. In place, his silver eyes glowing and his fangs sharp and glistening, he released the bedazzlement holding her in place.

She shook her head, like she was shaking out cobwebs, and looked around in confusion. Then she caught sight of him and her eyes widened. A hand flew to her chest and she took a startled step backwards.

Crouching slightly, spider-like, the ghost took a step forwards and grinned crazily at her. "Run, pretty!" he called and sent an image down one of the tendrils connecting him to her mind.

Bees sprang into existence in her mind, surrounding her and crawling on her and stinging her. She screamed and flailed. The psychovore laughed and stepped closer, reaching out to pull a long strand of silvery soul from the girl and sucking it into his mouth. "Delicious."

Another image was sent, this one of the alley suddenly not being an alley, but the top of a tall building with the floor beneath her feel falling away. And still the bees swarmed around her. Then, finally, she did exactly what the ghost wanted.

She was running down the alley…

* * *

Uploaded October 3, 2010  
Written... months ago for a contest.  
Thanks for reading!


	60. Ghost Rings

_Cleaning up my desktop. Previously uploaded on dA.  
_

_I went to jury duty and they kept me there for HOURS staring at a wall... and then they asked me all of two questions and told me that I was excused and could go home. I was like - wtf? Then, on my way out, they said to come back on Thursday._

_..._

_I'm all for civic duty and the justice system and stuff, but seriously.  
_

* * *

**Ghost Rings  
**A Danny Phantom/Psych Corssover by Cordria

* * *

_1987 – Santa Barbara_

The flashlight burst into light, causing the two young boys to flinch slightly. But even before their eyes adjusted, one of them was holding the light to his chin, illuminating the planes of his face. "This story has been passed down through generations of Spencers," he toned.

"No it hasn't," Shawn's friend cut in. "There's no way your dad believes a ghost story."

Shawn rolled his eyes and scowled, the flashlight falling to show the inside of a small tent, two sleeping bags, and the scattered remains of an unhealthy, sugar-filled supper. "Gus! You're ruining the special effects! Besides, grandpa told me the story."

"Oh," Gus muttered, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, preparing to listen to the story.

Shawn pouted a moment longer before bringing the flashlight back up to his face. "Anyways. This is the story of a girl named Danielle. She was once the prettiest and richest girl in the entire state and everybody followed her around and did what she wanted. She got all the ice cream she asked for and nobody yelled at her for eating too many candy bars."

"I hear that," Gus said softly. "But I thought this was a ghost story?"

"Give me a second," Shawn snapped. "I'm getting to it." He let out a long breath and his hand fell, letting the flashlight drop into his lap, apparently unwilling to continue holding it through the interruptions. "One day she was in a parade – the queen of the city or something stupid – and everyone was clapping for her and waving at her and stuff. This one guy notices her really long black hair and falls in love with her. He's always showing up at her door, bringing her chocolates and flowers and other things that girls like."

Gus let out a soft sigh, reaching behind himself to grab a forgotten candy bar. "How romantic."

"Shut up and let me tell the story." Shawn hesitated as he noticed the name on the candy bar. "And can I have half of that?" When Gus nodded, pulling at the wrapper to get it open, Shawn continued. "Danielle didn't like him back. She ignored his presents and when he came to the door to tell her he loved her, she sent out her brothers to beat him up!" The end of the sentence came out with a bit of relish, a small smile appearing on his young face.

"But then," Shawn said, his voice suddenly dropping lower and leaning forwards, tension appearing in the tent as if by magic, "do you know what happened?"

Gus stopped worrying at the wrapper and stared at his friend with wide brown eyes, shaking his head.

"This guy, he spits out some blood and puts a curse on her and on the entire town that was drooling over her. He said," Shawn paused for effect, finally bringing up the flashlight to make a 'scary' face, his voice slow and intoned, "I curse you to live forever and die forever, to be trapped in this town and to never know love. Everywhere you rest for the night, a ring of mushrooms will appear, and they'll be your gates into Hell."

"No way," Gus whispers.

Shawn smiled grimly, his eyes narrowing slightly, shifting positions. "Of course, everyone kind of laughed and the guy left town, never to be heard of again. But the girl, she vanished too, a couple weeks later. Everyone's looking for her, but all they can find are these rings of strange mushrooms."

Silence falls in the tent. Gus gazed at his friend, but then arched an eyebrow. "So be afraid of mushrooms? That's the ghost story? It's not that scary."

"You don't believe me?" Shawn said, his voice taking on an overly hurt tone. He suddenly moved, reaching forwards and snatching the half-forgotten candy bar from his friend's hand. Before Gus could complain, Shawn brought is up to his mouth and used his teeth to rip it open, snapping the bar in half and offering the other half.

Gus eyed the half-bar, then the saliva on the wrapper. "No thanks."

Shawn shrugged and took a huge bite. "No, here's the creepy part," he said around the mouthful of chocolate nougat. "A year later, this guy disappears. All anyone ever finds of him is this ring of mushrooms, a pair of shoes – inside the mushroom ring – and some strands of long, black hair. Over the years, more and more people go missing. Each time, all they ever find is rings of mushrooms and long, black hair."

"The legend has it," Shawn continued, "that Danielle's falling in love with people and dragging them into Hell with her. That the rings of mushrooms are actually doors or something, and if you're too handsome she'll come after you and you'll never be seen again."

"That's still a really horrible ghost story," Gus grumbled after a minute.

The paler boy smiled, a bit of a devil creeping onto his face. "You'll never guess where I set up the tent."

* * *

_2010 – Santa Barbara Police Department_

"You can't do this to me," the detective grumbled, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. "I refuse."

"It's not really a choice I'm giving you," a blond-haired woman answered calmly, leaning back in her chair. A nameplate on her desk proudly announced that she was 'Chief Vick', and the mess of folders and papers scattered around whispered about the amount of work she'd gotten lately.

Head detective Carlton Lassiter sputtered a moment, looking over his shoulder. "Can't you give this to McNab?"

"No." Conversation over, at least in her mind, Karen Vick turned her attention back to the mound of papers accumulating in her office.

"How about O'Hara? This is a perfect job for her." A note of panic was starting to enter the detective's voice.

Karen looked up and sighed. "Weren't you just moaning a few weeks ago about how you wanted kids someday? This is perfect for you."

"What about Spencer?" he tried one last time, digging down to the bottom of his barrel of options.

"It's just for one day," she said shortly. "You can handle it." When the man coughed, straightened his tie, and looked ready to continue to argue, a glint of steel flashed in her eyes. "Go away, Carlton."

"But-"

She held up a hand, cutting him off and pointing imperially at the door. "And make sure you close the door on the way out."

Lassiter's mouth moved a few times, but he finally just scowled and stalked from the office, closing the door a bit more roughly than absolutely necessary. "This is not in my job description," he grumbled darkly. He was going to head towards his desk, but his eyes caught on the subject of his discussion with the Chief.

It was a young teenage female. Her black hair was a mess, her sky blue eyes looked tired, there were bruises of varying colors and shapes on her arms, and she was slumped in the chair in clothes that were near to rags. She was also one of the key witnesses to a rather strange crime and was now under the protective custody of the SBDP until social services could get their act together and take her off their hands.

Or, more accurately, she was in _Lassiter's_ protective custody until such point in time.

Lassiter let out a slow breath, brushing his hands over his gray suit and absently brushing through his short hair. "Let's get this over with," he muttered to himself and stepped up to her.

The girl looked up, her eyes fixing on him in a distant sort of way. "What do you want?" she said tonelessly.

"You're in my custody until social services gets here," he said abruptly, momentarily annoyed that she hadn't gotten to her feet and didn't seem to care a lick that he was talking to her.

"Good for me," she said, fighting back a yawn. "Do you have a cot around here I could catch a few z's on?"

"No." He eyed her and straightened his shoulders a bit more, perhaps in an attempt to make up for her lack of posture. "Let's go over the rules now so we don't have to deal with each other later." The girl arched an eyebrow at that, but waved a hand in a 'continue' motion. "Rule 1 – my name is head detective Carlton Lassiter. You'll address me as such. Rule 2 – I'm in charge of you and you'll do what I say."

The girl yawned widely, causing Lassiter to take a small step backwards. Whatever the girl had eaten lately had contained quite a bit of garlic.

"Rule 3," Lassiter added, "no yawning in my presence."

She shook her head, but a tiny smile danced at the corners of her mouth. "Yes, your majesty. Now, seriously, do you have somewhere I could get some sleep? I was up all night."

Lassiter stared down at her for a long moment, then closed his eyes. "Officer Allen," he barked, making the slightly overweight female officer at the front desk flinch. "Can you find this girl a cot? And maybe some mouthwash?"

Without another word, Lassiter turned on his heel and strode off towards his desk. Behind him, the girl and Officer Allen exchanged a glance and a shake of the head.

* * *

Carlton Lassiter stared at the file sitting on his desk, sipping at the coffee someone had remembered to bring him. He made a mental note to figure out who it was and torment them – someone was sucking up to him – but for now he just enjoyed it. The coffee had been made just right. Three creams, four sugars…

"Lassie!"

The coffee turned sour in Lassiter's mouth and he stared down at the cup, belatedly noticing the pineapple scribbled onto the lid. "Spencer, why did you bring me coffee?"

"Because I'm your closest and dearest friend," Shawn said, dropping easily into the chair next to him.

"You are not."

"I most certainly am." Shawn grinned and leaned back in the chair, lacing his fingers behind his head and putting his feet on Lassiter's desk. The detective's lip curled and he pushed at the shoes, noting the piece of chewing gum with disgust. "Tell me one other person who you respect and admire more than me. _Anyone_ on this planet who would hold the distinctive title of 'your best friend' if not me?"

For a blank second, Lassiter couldn't come up with anyone. Then he sneered and said, "Evil Kenevil."

Surprise shot across the pseudo-psychic's face. "You know who Evil Kenevil is?"

"What do you want, Spencer?"

"Nothing." Shawn leaned forwards, snagging the cup of coffee from Lassiter's hand and taking a sip. Then he made a face and wiped at his lips. "Oh my God, that's got a lot of sugar in it. Besides, technically Gus got you the coffee. I wanted to get you one of those new pineapple lattes with the little umbrellas and the real fruit, but stick-in-the-mud Gus wouldn't let me."

When Shawn held out the coffee for Lassiter to take back, the detective glared at him and kept his hands firmly on his desk. Shawn shrugged and set the cup down on top of a stack of important papers. "Spencer," Lassiter snapped, picking it up before a coffee ring marred the documents.

"See? I knew you secretly wanted it."

Lassiter snarled to himself and turned around, setting the now-unwanted coffee on an empty space. When he turned back around, Spencer had a few pieces of paper in his hands and was riffling through them. "That's police business!"

"Perfect. Good thing I work for them," Shawn said distractedly. "It's the case that was all over the news this morning, isn't it? The robbery-murder nobody can figure out?"

"We can figure it out," Lassiter said, grabbing for the papers.

Shawn pulled farther away, holding them over his head. "I can help!"

"No, you can't." The detective got to his feet and snatched them away from the annoying psychic. "The chief already said 'No'."

A blink of surprise blankness appeared on Shawn's face. "You… asked already?"

Lassiter scowled and dropped in his chair, organizing the papers back into the proper order. They were all numbered and that idiotic Spencer never failed to mess them up. "Yes," he finally acknowledged, even though it was technically a lie. The chief had said 'no' to Spencer watching the runaway girl, not 'no' to helping on the case.

"But it's right up my alley!" Shawn protested. "The guy is killed in a locked room, inside a locked building, with no signs of entry and all the doors locked from the inside. And the only thing that's missing is that incredibly expensive wedding ring, despite the fact that there's millions and millions in cash and jewelry in that room. It's… supernatural!"

"No, it's not."

"It's screaming for a psychic," Shawn pleaded, scooting to the edge of the chair and folding his hands, resting his elbows on the desk and staring at Lassiter with his blue eyes. "I haven't had a case in weeks, Lassie. Please!"

Lassiter stared down at the case file in his hands, silent.

"Two days. Give me two days," the psychic said abruptly. "If I can't figure it out in forty-eight hours, I'll work for free."

Lassiter arched an eyebrow, rereading the list of evidence collected at the scene of the crime. He didn't normally request help on homicides…

"And, if I can't do it in two days, I won't take any credit. Anything I figure out I'll give right to you and you'll be the big hero." After a moment of silence, Shawn sighed. "And I'll admit that I couldn't do it. On tape."

"Fine," Lassiter finally said, closing the organized folder and setting it into Shawn's hands. "Forty-eight hours." A small smile played across the detective's face. He knew a dead-end case when it was presented to him. Spencer had an unusual ability to solve the unsolvable, but without some major pieces of evidence, not even this demi-psychic could do it in two days. He looked forwards to replaying that taped admission many times.

"Excellent!" Shawn cheered, pushing himself to his feet. "Now to find Gus. And a bag of those new garlic potato chips." He shot Lassiter a glance. "Have you tried them yet? They're to _die_ for!"

* * *

"This. Is. It," Shawn said dramatically as he pushed open the door to his best friend (and fellow private detective)'s office at the pharmaceutical company, flipping through the file with a smile. Drug posters plastered the walls of the tiny room and small boxes of samples were crowded onto shelves in neat stacks. "We finally got ourselves a case!"

There was no answer. Shawn blinked and looked up, finally noting the absence of Burton Guster from behind the desk. "Gus?"

His forehead wrinkled as he scanned the small room, then walked forwards and opened up one of the drawers, snagging a piece of candy. Popping it into his mouth, he leaned out the door into the hallway. "Do you know where Gus is?" he asked a passing woman.

The lady shrugged and continued on her way, but then looked back over her shoulder. "The bosses are having a big meeting about promotions. Maybe he's there."

"A promotion?" Shawn said, horrified. "You mean that new junior manager position Gus has been rambling about for weeks?"

The woman smiled and nodded. "That one."

"But that means office hours." Shawn stared at her, devastated. "And having to be places at certain times. And no more leaving to help me with cases!"

She blinked and tipped her head in confusion. "Um… I suppose," she said, then turned and headed off up the hallway, leaving Shawn standing there with his hands by his sides and his eyes wide.

"He can't do this to me," Shawn said slowly, shaking his head. He retreated back into Gus's small office, closing the door and settling into Gus's old chair. The case file was dropped onto the otherwise pristine desk, momentarily forgotten. "He can't abandon Psych. Not now! We're just getting started."

A frown chased its way across Shawn's face and his forehead wrinkled. He stared at the door, then glared at the door, then scowled darkly at the door. "How long does a stupid meeting take? I'm on a deadline. Doesn't he understand what that means?"

Suddenly remembering the reason he'd been allowed to be on the case, Shawn sat up and gazed down at the file. "I suppose I could do this one on my own, if Gus's going to go all corporate on me. I guess I don't really need him to do all the reporting and remembering and reading and junk."

He waited a few more minutes, chewing his lip. Then he sighed and grabbed the file, making sure to steal a handful of candies on his way out.

* * *

The place where the murder had happened was a security firm known as Bownen Securities. It was a large, squarish building with thick locks, hundreds of cameras, eighteen motion detectors, two large vaults with digitally-cycling encryption codes, four full-time armed guards, and an unknown amount of unmentioned safekeeping features. It was, at least up until yesterday, the safest place within a hundred-mile radius.

"And no one knows how this murder happened," Shawn Spencer muttered from his motorcycle as he pulled up to the front door, shaking his head. "Nothing caught on video, nobody hearing anything, yet the guy was shot and a ring was stolen." He yanked his helmet off and killed the bike. "You know what that screams: inside job."

One of the guards by the door eyed him as he parked his motorcycle and strode towards the door. "Can I help you?" the burly man asked, his voice deep and rough.

"Yes, my good man," Shawn said, setting a huge smile on his face. "My name is Shawn Spencer. I'm the head psychic for the SBPD and I need to see your vault."

The man snorted. "Psychic? Yeah, right." He nudged his partner. "Prove it."

Shawn dug out his wallet and handed the man one of the business cards he'd had Gus make up a few months back. "See? There's my name-"

The thick hand curled into a fist, the business card vanishing like a car in a car-crushing machine. "It looks like you got those from Insty-prints. It doesn't prove anything."

Rocking back on his heels, Shawn blinked in surprise. "Muscles and brains? I wasn't expecting that," he muttered. His took in the huge man, noting the bits of white cream on his balding head, the nice shine on his shoes, and the bright-white ring of skin on his finger.

Then, crossing his fingers, Shawn closed his eyes and raised his hand to his temple dramatically. "I see… a marriage. No. A broken one. But you knew it was coming and now you're on the market again." He opened his eyes a crack to gauge the reaction, smiling to himself at the look of surprise and agreement on the man's face. He reached forwards and tapped the man's arm. "The cream's not going to work for you, though. You should just shave it all off and be done with it."

The guard pulled back, then shook his head. "I don't know about that."

"No! The girl's dig a chrome dome! Just ask my buddy, Gus. He's always getting his head rubbed." Shawn smiled hugely. "You're guaranteed to catch a girl!"

The man nodded, still eyeing Shawn skeptically, but the other guard had gotten caught up in the act. "I've been telling Dave to shave his head for months," the other man said eagerly. "That's really impressive how you knew all that! I've seen you on the news, too," he added.

"That's great. Can I go in?" Shawn asked him, mentally reminding himself to talk to _this_ guard from now on. "Police business, you know."

"Sure," the man said agreeably, stepping back and holding the door open. "But watch out for the mushrooms."

Shawn stopped and looked back at the man, an eyebrow hitched upwards. "Say again?"

"Mushrooms. The guy was found dead, on a stone floor, with a ring of mushrooms growing around him. The boss wanted us to get rid of them earlier, but none of us would, not with that urban legend running around."

"I remember that one," Shawn said slowly, suddenly not nearly as anxious to get into the vault. "But you don't seriously believe-"

The second guard nodded, the first just rolled his eyes. "It all fits, you know. A wedding ring was stolen and that girl they found sleeping in the alley, she said she saw a young woman with long, black hair walk right through a wall and run away. Like a ghost or something."

Shawn blinked and stared down at the police file he hadn't completely read. Not for the first time, he wondered if he should have. "There's no such thing as ghosts," Shawn said, more to himself than to anyone else.

* * *

Not all that far from Santa Barbara, a sixteen-year-old was sitting at a table in a small diner, a phone wedged between his ear and his shoulder, a look crossing his face. "You're where?" he said for the second time.

The answer from the other end of the line obviously wasn't what he was looking for, because he actually grabbed the phone, giving it his complete attention. "I'm not sure what to say, Dani. Why'd you let yourself get caught in the first place?"

He was silent, listened and sighed. "I know. If they try to run your family, they're going to come up with nothing and you're going to be stuck there forever. Why don't you just leave? It's not like they can keep you there."

The teenager laughed suddenly and shook his head. "You're too much like me. But I get it. You need to stay and help."

"I'm actually not that far from Santa Barbara," he said after a moment, picking up a French fry and covering it in a thick layer of ketchup before popping it into his mouth. "Mom and Dad dragged me on another one of their 'expeditions' and we're investigating a hollow tree just outside of San Bernardino."

"No, it's not haunted. It's just hollow."

He quietly chewed his fry, then shook his head. "Nah, I don't mind. I've been voted in as navigator, so it shouldn't be that hard to sidetrack them your way. We can deal with that ghost you found."

Silence fell for the space of a few fries, a look of incredulous laughter creeping into his eyes. "Seriously? The detectives there are that bad?" He snorted in laughter. "He ordered you not to yawn in his presence? I can't wait to meet this guy."

_

* * *

_

Uploaded 10/12/10  
To be continued?  
Thanks for reading!


	61. The Corruption of Tucker

_Aw... I came home from the remains of my work day and had thirty-seven reviews sitting in my email. You guys are so sweet and kind..._

_Here's another crossover start as a present and a thank you!_

_Danny Phantom: takes place just before Phantom Planet._

_Kim Possible: takes place at some point after the season four episode called 'Stop Team GO', but before the series finale._

* * *

**The Corruption of Tucker**_  
A Danny Phantom/Kim Possible Crossover by Cordria_

* * *

Danny scowled at the small helmet he was holding, rolling it slightly between the palms of his hands as he walked towards home after detention. "Stupid Box Ghost," he muttered darkly.

"Hey, Danny!" Glancing over his shoulder, Danny grinned as Sam hurried up to him, a smile on her face until she saw the odd-looking helmet in his hands. "And what's this?" she asked.

"The Box Ghost had it," Danny said, holding the helmet out for her to take. "Or, at least I think it was the Box Ghost. Blue skin, demented laugh, bad clothes, muttering about taking over the world, easy to defeat…"

A smile flickered across Sam's face. "Sounds like the Box Ghost to me." Her fingers lightly touched the small dials and wiring and traced over the 'H' emblazoned on the front, and tapped the two light bulbs at the top glistening in the bright afternoon sun. "But why would he have this? Was it in a box?"

"Nope," Danny said. "And he ran away for once rather than try to doom me until I sucked him into a Thermos." Danny hesitated, thinking back to the short-lived battle. "He was acting kind of odd too – I've never heard the Box Ghost scream like that when he saw me. He just dropped this and ran."

Sam shook her head and squinted at the small words written on the back of the strange helmet. "Hench Co.?" Sam said dubiously. "The Attitudinator 2.3? What on Earth is an Attitudinator?"

"Maybe it's a new kind of ghost fashion statement."

Sam snorted. "Maybe." She turned it around and around, chewing on her lip. "I wouldn't put it on, though. It looks too much like Nocturne's dream helmet for comfort."

Danny hummed in the back of his throat and took the helmet back, tucking it under his arm.

"Danny."

"I'm not going to put it on!" Danny said. "Trust me, Sam. I learned my lesson with Nocturne: no strange helmets."

"Good." Sam picked up her pace a little. "We're going to be late meeting Tucker. Come on."

With a small sigh, Danny lengthened his stride to keep up with his best friend, his mind already plotting how best to remove Tucker's famous red beret. Tucker'd look great in the idiotic-looking helmet and, Danny mentally added, he'd only need to leave it on long enough to get a good blackmail picture. Surely nothing bad could happen in those few seconds.

* * *

"It was a _ghost_, Shego."

"There's no such thing." Shego sat back and put her heels up on the hotel room table, quietly studying her fingernails for any chips. "You were seeing things."

"He walked through the wall." Dr. Drakken scowled and paced back and forth, his frown deepening when he couldn't get a good, stress-eating pace going. "This room simply isn't long enough, Shego. I told you we should have checked into the place down the street." When the woman simply rolled her green eyes and ignored him, Drakken stormed over to one of the beds and crossed his arms. "The ghost stole my Attitudinator."

Shego smirked. "I bet you screamed like a girl and dropped it."

"I did not!"

"Prove it," she said, her eyes sparkling malevolently as she stared at her blue-skinned boss.

Drakken glared back. "I don't have to prove anything, Shego. I'm Dr. Drakken, evil scientist and soon-to-be ruler of the world."

Shego arched an eyebrow. "You lost your Attitudinator, Drakken. Doesn't that throw a crimp into your plans?"

"Only a small one," Drakken fired back, his eyes narrowed. "Once you steal it back from that ghost-"

"Woah, hold it." Shego held up a finger. "My contract specifically states no ghosts, haunted houses, or undead mummies."

Drakken's forehead wrinkled. "Since when?"

"Since always. It's right under the clause about no mind control or Synthodrones." She pulled her feet off the desk and stood up, muttering under her breath. "Not that you followed _that_ clause." Pushing past Drakken sitting on the bed, she headed towards the hotel room door.

"I thought you said there's no such thing as ghosts!"

"There isn't." Shego paused by the door long enough to dig through her bag for her swimsuit.

Drakken was still blinking, confused. "Then where are you going?"

She grinned as she pushed open the hotel room door. "Did you see the life guard at the pool? I'm going swimming."

"But my Attitudinator!"

"Get it yourself," she said, the door closing shut behind her, leaving Dr. Drakken alone in his hotel room.

Drakken's scowl grew, but he didn't get up to chase down his henchman. "_Fine_," he said to himself. "Once I _somehow_ get my Attitudinator back, without Shego's help, I will be unstoppable!"

* * *

Ron Stoppable hummed softly to himself as he sat down at his parents' kitchen table, a glass of orange juice and a cheese sandwich sitting in front of him. "It ain't no Naco," he said to Rufus, "but it's the best we can do."

The small mole rat nodded, watching happily as Ron grabbed the large jar of gherkin pickles. "Uh-huh, uh-huh!" Rufus danced on the table, waiting for Ron to open the jar.

Grabbing the jar firmly in his hands, Ron grinned. "I do love my-" he yanked at the lid, cutting off what he was saying with a small grunt of effort. When the lid failed to move, Ron's forehead wrinkled a little, and he twisted harder and harder. "Hey!"

After a few seconds, he stopped, panting a little and looking around his kitchen. "Mom? Dad?" He twisted and yanked on the lid for a moment more. "Hana? I can't get the lid off!"

"Hey! Is anyone there?"

Rufus jumped onto Ron's hand and ran up to the top of his head, looking around the kitchen before sadly shaking his head. "Nuh-uh."

Ron scowled, dropping the unopenable jar onto the table, glaring at it for a long moment. Then he brightened, sitting up and grabbing for the phone. "This is a job for Kim Possible!"

* * *

Danny dropped into his normal seat at the Nasty Burger, the strange helmet still tucked in his arm, and stared at the strange concoction sitting on his friend's plate. "Tucker… what are you eating?"

"It's new," the African American teen said between mouthfuls of food. "Apparently the Nasty Burger was bought out by this new company and they're 'testing' some new menu items."

Setting the helmet on the table, oblivious to Tucker's startled stare when he saw it, Danny leaned forwards to study the half-eaten remains of Tucker's afterschool snack. "So is it a taco or a nacho or something?"

"It's both," Tucker said, dragging his eyes away from the odd-looking helmet to grin at his friend. "It's called a _Naco_. It's better than an original Nasty Burger, but not quite as good as the Mega Mighty Meaty Meal with extra Nasty sauce and a double order of meat."

"Huh," Danny said, dropping back into his seat. "That's saying something."

"That it's extra gross," Sam cut in, setting Danny's basket of fries on the table before settling down with her soy-milk strawberry shake.

"Oh, and have you tried the new Diablo sauce?" Tucker held out a packet of the aptly-named condiment. "It's almost as explosive as Nasty sauce, only a little spicier."

Danny took it and studied the small packet of sauce, scowling. "Great. So next time the Nasty Burger explodes, at least it'll be spicy."

Sam took the sauce out of his hand and sighed, scanning over the ingredients. "There's nothing natural in this at all, guys. It's all chemicals and poisons! How can you eat-" She cut off as Tucker grabbed the sauce, ripped it open, and poured it on the remaining half of his Naco. Her eyes glazing in horror, she watched as Tucker downed the rest of the Naco in a few huge bites. "That is," she said weakly, " perhaps the most disgusting thing I have ever seen."

"Yeah, Tucker," Danny agreed, sitting back in his chair with a disgusted expression on his face. "I already saw the Naco once; I don't want to watch it get chewed."

Swallowing the last bit and wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Tucker rolled his eyes and changed the subject. "What's with the freaky helmet? Technus and Nocturne team up?"

"I hadn't thought of Technus," Danny said softly, turning his attention to the help and studying it for a moment. "The Box Ghost dropped it." His forehead wrinkled. "At least, I _thought_ it was the Box Ghost. The more I think about it, though, the less I think it was…"

"What's it do?" Tucker asked when Danny trailed off. At the collective shrug from the other two teenagers, Tucker reached over and picked up the freakish device. "The Attitudinator 2.3? Hench Co.?" He snickered a little, studying the wires with a practiced eye. "That sounds like something out of a cartoon."

Danny rolled his eyes. "So, oh great Geeky one, what do you think it does?"

"The wires look like they monitor brain waves," Tucker said after a moment. "And these little dishes probably emit some sort of signal." He held it out at arms' length. "One guess would be brain washing. Mind control. Something of that sort."

"At least it doesn't have some anagram of Vlad's name on it," Sam finally said with a shake of her head. "Let's smash the thing and call it a day."

"I don't see a power source," Tucker continued, his forehead wrinkling under his signature hat. "Look, there's no ectoplasmic receptors, no battery…" He was quiet for a long second, then laughed. "This thing'd never work! Look at the way these wires are arranged. Some of these go to nowhere."

"Meaning…" Danny said, chewing through a handful of his fries.

Tucker shrugged. "It's a toy. It doesn't work. There's no battery and no place to hook on it. The electronics are insane." He set the helmet down on the table and flicked it with his finger. "It's just ugly."

"So try it on," Danny replied.

"No!" Sam said. "What if he's wrong? What if it's a ghost thing and-"

"I trust Tucker," Danny interrupted, a small smile on his face. "If he says it's harmless, it's harmless." He shot a grin at Tucker. "You try it on, I'll try it on. Let's see who looks worse in it."

"You first," Tucker said, rising to the challenge by reaching over and stealing a few of Danny's fries.

"Hey!" Glowing green eyes glared at Tucker from across the table. "For that, you go first."

Tucker raised a fist and held it over the table. "On three?"

Danny never hesitated. He held out his own fist next to Tucker's. "One," he said darkly.

"Two," Tucker added.

"Three!" Danny shot out his hand, turning it into the symbol for scissors. Tucker's hand was flat, showing paper. "Scissors cuts paper, ol' buddy ol' pal of mine. You first."

Sam's hand shot out, slamming onto the top of the helmet right as Tucker grabbed it, holding it firmly to the table. "No. This is stupid."

"It doesn't _work_, Sam," Tucker said, yanking the helmet out from under her hand. "It's just a tricked-out, freaky-looking bike helmet."

"Yeah, and it's October," Danny added, brightening as he smoothed into his own pet theory. "It's probably someone's Halloween costume that the Box Ghost got a hold of and ran off with."

Sam's violet eyes narrowed slightly. "I thought you just got done saying you weren't sure it even _was_ the Box Ghost."

Danny shrugged. "It's been a long day. Lancer's long since turned my brain to mush. How many other guys in Amity Park have blue skin and mutter about taking over the world?"

"Exactly," Tucker agreed, pulling off his beret long enough to slide the Attitudinator onto his head. "How do I look?"

"Crazy," Danny laughed, relaxing when he saw Sam's mouth hitch up into a small smile at the weird-looking helmet on their friend's head. "Hang on, I'll take a picture."

As Danny dug through his backpack for his phone, Tucker suddenly frowned. "Guys, my feet itch."

"To much information-" Sam started, but cut off with a gasp. "Tucker, it's glowing. The helmet's glowing!"

Danny banged his head as he yanked it back up, rubbing a little as he stared at the red and blue lights flashing into existence on the helmet. "Tucker…"

Tucker was already moving, his hands coming up to yank the helmet back off. Just as his hands touched the helmet, there was a flashing burst of red light. Sam and Danny were forced to close their eyes and look away, flinching a little at the odd sound coming from their friend's mouth. When the light cleared, Tucker was lying on the ground, the helmet still rolling slightly from where Tucker had dropped it.

"Tucker!" Danny shouted, sliding to the floor next to his friend and shaking Tucker's shoulders.

Sam was right next to him, her cell phone already in her hand. "Tucker?" she asked, reaching forwards to check for a pulse, her eyes worried as her fingers quickly hit a few buttons. "I'm going to call for a paramedic."

Just before she hit the call button on her phone, Tucker groaned and opened his eyes. "Stop shaking me," he muttered weakly.

"Are you okay?" Danny asked. Tucker shot him a glare, which got Danny to flush and mutter, "Sorry, standard question."

"I'm fine," Tucker said after a moment. "Let me up."

Danny helped him sit up as the manager of the Nasty Burger finally reached them and crouched down, wringing his hands. "What happened? Do you need an ambulance? Whatever it was, I'm sure it wasn't the Nasty Burger's fault. I don't need a lawyer, do I?"

"I just fell off the chair," Tucker lied smoothly, letting Danny haul him to his feet. "I got a shock and fell. No big deal." He grabbed his beret from where it was sitting on the table and placed it back on his head. "I'm fine."

The manager clearly seemed relieved as a huge smile split his face. "I'm so happy to hear that." He got to his feet, still watching them closely. "This is my first day here. I'd hate to have a lawsuit on my first day."

"Yeah, he's fine," Danny repeated, grabbing Tucker's arm and pulling him towards the door. "We're going to go, though."

Sam grabbed her backpack and started to follow, but then hesitated and turned back to the manager. "If you're new we should sit down and have a chat about this bit of garbage you're selling as food." She pointed to the Diablo sauce packet. "It's all poisons-"

"Sam!" Danny shouted. "Later!"

"I'll call you," Sam told the pale-faced manager before hurrying out of the Nasty Burger after her friends. In the surprise and fuss of the moment, none of them realized that they had all forgotten to grab the helmet, which had rolled under the table and had come to rest against the leg of a young man named Dash Baxter.

Dash, who was rolling his eyes at the new level of freakiness coming from the losers, turned back to his friends with a laugh. "Did you see that?" he chuckled, just as his foot came back and kicked one of the buttons on the helmet. The blue light bulb on the helmet flickered into life for a second before sparking and surrounding Dash in a flash of blue light.

"Woah," another boy said, edging away from Dash. "What was that?"

Dash shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, checking to make sure his letter jacket was still in one piece. "Dunno, but let's blame the freaks."

There was a collective snort from the group as they dug back into their food, the helmet rolling into a dark, forgotten, little corner of the Nasty Burger.

* * *

Shego hummed appreciatively, pulling her green sunglasses down to the end of her nose and watching the life guard stretching on his chair. "This is what I call a vacation," she murmured.

"Shego!"

Shego flinched slightly at the nasally voice of her boss, but didn't scowl and sit up until Drakken's blue lab coat blocked her view. "What?" she snapped, ripping off her sunglasses to make sure Drakken received the full dose of her fury.

The blue-skinned man took a small step backwards, cowering a little before straightening his shoulders. "I've got a plan to get my Attitudinator back _without your help_," he proclaimed.

"Good for you," Shego drawled, settling back in her chair.

"And when I rule the world, you'll get nothing," he said darkly, crossing his arms.

"You're in my sun," Shego muttered as she put her sunglasses back on and draped herself back into her chair. "Think you can get me one of those drinks with the little umbrellas while you're up?"

"No ruling Australia for you."

Shego snorted. "What makes you think this 'take over the world' thing will work this time? I'm sure Kimmy will show up before the sun sets, foil your plans, and send you back to lick your wounds in the dark. I'm going to take full advantage of the sunlight while I have the chance."

"There won't be a Kim Possible this time," Drakken said with a dark chuckle. "She's never even going to know I'm behind it all. Besides, I've made sure that she's too busy to care. This plan is flawless!"

"Yeah, okay, Mr. Flawless Plan. Call me when it fails and I need to come bail you out."

"Shego…" Drakken started, anger in his voice, but then he scowled and stormed off, leaving Shego to lounge in the sun on her own. She waited a few moments to see if he'd come back, then took another long look at the life guard before waving down a waiter to order one of those drinks she'd been wanting.

* * *

"Kim?" Ron, the jar of pickles in his hand, stared through the window into his best friend's darkened house. She hadn't answered his phone calls earlier either. "Mr. and Mrs. Drs. P.?" he called.

There was no answer.

"Huh, that's strange," Ron muttered. Rufus climbed out of his pocket to stare in the window and tap lightly on the glass before looking up at Ron with a little whimper. "I know, I know, buddy," Ron said, reaching down to pat Rufus's head. "We'll get the jar open. We don't need Kim."

Ron stared at the jar for a long moment, grabbing and twisting the lid once more. "Stupid jar!"

* * *

Kim Possible pushed a few strands of her red hair out of her eyes and glared at the cow-covered countryside. "Where are we going?" she demanded for the ninth time.

"You'll see, Kimmy-cub," her father replied with a chuckle, turning down some dismal-looking road in the middle of nowhere.

"I'm missing cheerleading practice," Kim grumbled, settling back into her seat between the dweebs and crossing her arms. "And what happens if the world needs saving? I'm… I don't even know where I am!"

Her mother turned in her seat and smiled at Kim, relenting slightly. "We're in Wisconsin, dear."

"Wisconsin?" Jim muttered from one side with a dubious look on his face. "Home of the dairy cow?"

"And cheese, and the Packers?" Tim added, setting down the small contraption he'd been working on since they left Middleton.

"Precisely," James Possible said. "Just wait and see, you'll enjoy where we're going."

Kim watched the cows and random trees roll by for a few moments. "How much longer?" she asked, eyeing Tim's device dubiously when he pulled a set of batteries out of his bag and started to insert them.

"Another half-hour until we reach the Master's place," their father said.

"Masters?" Jim sat forwards, his eyes wide. "As in _Vlad_ Masters?"

"As in the mega-billionaire and one of the world's best sources of funding for new technology?" Tim continued, the whatever-it-was in his hands forgotten for the moment.

Their father sighed and bonked his head with the heel of his hand. "It was supposed to be a surprise," he muttered. "But yes. That's who we're going to meet."

"I thought he was mayor of some town?" Tim asked, leaning forwards to peer around Kim and exchange a look with his twin. "What's he doing in the middle of Wisconsin?"

"Mr. Masters is unveiling some new piece of space equipment that is supposed to revolutionize the way we see space travel," James Possible said sourly. "This is where he's showing it off. And it was _supposed_ to be a surprise."

"New space technology?" Jim asked brightly, his eyes glittering.

"Hicka-bicka-boo?" Tim said with a grin.

"Hoo-sha," Jim finished just as their mother twisted around to fix them with a glare.

"You're not going to touch _a thing_ while we're there. No upgrading the new technology, no incorporating any sort of fission engine, and no building a rocket to test any of this new technology out in space. You hear me boys?"

Both of them deflated slightly, but they exchanged a wicked grin even as they chimed their agreement.

Kim, not at all convinced, pulled her Kimmunicator out of her pocket and quietly turned it on. Trying to ignore the buzzing noise coming from Tim's newly-turned-on device, Kim sent a message to Wade asking him to look up information on Vlad Masters and the new technology he was supposedly going to unveil. She wanted to be one step ahead of whatever messes her brothers were going to pull.

* * *

Danny scowled from the bench at the mall, looking at Sam with an annoyed glint to his eye. "Tucker's taking forever," Danny moaned.

"Why don't you go check on him?" Sam replied, not looking up from her Gothic magazine.

"Whoa, whoa," Danny held up a hand as Sam glanced up at him. "Guys don't check on guys in the bathroom. I know girls go as groups, but us guys can handle it on our own."

She arched an eyebrow. "What if that shock earlier hurt him? What if he's lying on the floor, dying?"

"What if he's not?" Danny shot back. "What if he's taking so long because he's… doing something I really didn't want to think of him doing," he finished with a groan, burying his face in his hands.

"You could invisibly check on him…"

Danny shot her a look that would have burned her in place, were that one of Danny's abilities. "_Never_. And you will never repeat that _ever again_."

Sam shrugged and flicked to the next page in her magazine. "Then stop muttering about it and wait. He hasn't been gone that long." Then she hesitated, her forehead wrinkling. "What did you do with that freaky helmet, anyways?"

"Me?" Danny said, startled. "You're the one that picked it up."

"No I didn't grab…" Sam trailed off, arching an eyebrow as she stared over Danny's shoulder. "It still doesn't work on you," she finished.

"What doesn't?" Danny asked, confused, before he twisted around to blink in surprise.

Tucker was dressed all in dark colors, dark eyeliner around his eyes, his red beret exchanged for a black one. He smoothed his hands over his jacket and a wicked grin appeared on his face. "The girls love a bad boy," he said.

"That's what took you so long?" Danny muttered, annoyed. "You went shopping?"

"Is that leather?" Sam overrode Danny, standing to storm up to Tucker and examine the techo geek's new jacket, freezing when she felt the leather in her hands. "That's real leather," Sam whispered, sounding dazed. "Tuck…"

"I'm so bad I'm good," Tucker said, pulling his jacket out of Sam's limp fingers and ignoring the broken look on her face. "I'm off, guys. Gotta find me a lady."

The two friends watched Tucker saunter away, Danny's mouth open in confused shock, Sam looking like her favorite pet had just been run over.

* * *

"Dang it, I thought I put a locator beacon on my Attitudinator," Drakken muttered as he stalked through Amity Park staring down at his handheld GPS. The screen should have been blinking the location of his property, but the screen was blank. "Maybe the ghost turned the beacon off."

The thought made him shudder a little and glance over his shoulder. Shego was right – there wasn't really such a thing as ghosts – but he couldn't forget what he'd seen. The whatever-it-was that had taken his Attitudinator had walked right through the wall. It had attacked him! Glowing, evil eyes and fangs and claws… he was sure of it.

The last thing Dr. Drakken wanted to do was track down that ghost and demand his property back, but he really didn't see any other way. He'd been stretching the truth a little when he'd told Shego that he had a plan to get it back. Now he actually had to do it without her help.

Drakken scowled and turned down another street. He was the mad scientist, not the guy who actually went and did things. Even if he _did_ manage to find the ghost that had taken it, what was he supposed to do? He wasn't a-

"GHOST!" someone bellowed.

Drakken levitated in surprise, trying to spin in the direction of the voice even as a net appeared around him and slammed him to the ground. "AH!" Drakken screamed, fully convinced that a ghost had captured him, dropping his GPS and preparing to beg for his life. Perhaps he could promise the ghost Greenland in return for letting him go. Maybe even Australia – it would serve Shego right to lose that.

Dragging his eyes upwards to his attacker, Drakken paled a little at the huge gun pointed in his direction. It seemed to be almost a bazooka, the end of the barrel nearly large enough for him to put his hand in, the depths of the gun glowing an eerie green. "Shego," he whimpered. "Where are you?"

The hulking orange creature behind the gun laughed. "I got the ghost! Mads!"

"Good job, Jack!" A blue creature, slimmer and shorter, appeared beside him.

Drakken blinked a few times as the monsters slowly dissolved into people, his heart slowing down its frantic pace. A large man in an orange jumpsuit with goggles, the slimmer one a woman carrying a nasty-looking staff in a similar-looking blue jumpsuit. "Wait, wait," Drakken said, holding out his hands, "I'm not a ghost."

"You're blue," the orange man said suspiciously.

"But I'm not a ghost," Drakken repeated. "Let me go."

The woman pulled some small device from her pocket and pointed it in Drakken's direction, looking down at the display before sighing. She pushed the goggles and hood back over her head and dropped the device back into her pocket. "He's not a ghost, Jack."

"But he's blue!" Jack demanded. "Just like the ghost that steals the recycling every week."

She rolled her eyes and walked over to Drakken, kneeling down to release him from the net. Pushing Jack's gun to the side, she held out her hand and helped Drakken to his feet. "I'm sorry about that…" she arched an eyebrow.

"Drakken," Drakken filled in quickly. "Dr. Drakken."

"See, Jack?" she said with a smile. "He's a doctor. Not a ghost."

Jack was still eyeing him suspiciously as Drakken started to edge away. "Well, thank you for letting me go, but I really must be going now…"

He was about to make a break for it, but the large orange man suddenly put away his gun and bounded forwards, holding out a business card. "If you're not a ghost," he said suspiciously, "you should have this."

"Hm, thanks," Drakken said sarcastically, taking the small card and glancing down at it. Whatever they were selling, Drakken wasn't buying. But then he blinked and read over the card again. "Ghost hunters?"

"Maddie and Jack Fenton," Jack said proudly, pulling his wife against him with a beefy arm. "We'll spear any spook and grapple with any ghost."

Drakken's mind was running even as Jack Fenton was starting to explain how each of the devices he was carrying worked. Perhaps he wouldn't have to go find the Attitudinator all on his own. His eyes drifted from the card to the two ghost hunters, a small smile appearing on his face. "You know," he said when Jack paused to take a breath, "I might have a job for you…"

* * *

"Wade, I need your help. This is serious."

Wade looked up from the data he was compiling to stare at Ron's face on the screen. "I'm kinda busy with something for Kim, Ron."

"But this is _important_ - more important than anything Kim could have going on." On Ron's shoulder, Rufus nodded emphatically.

"What if Kim is saving the world?"

Ron looked startled. "Without me?" he asked. Then he shook his head. "Not possible. Besides, this will only take a minute."

Wade rolled his eyes and sighed, stopping typing into the file on Vlad Masters. "What is it?"

Ron's eyes glittered as he leaned forward, his mouth filling the screen, much to Wade's disgust. "I call it 'Operation Gherkin'."

* * *

Danny stuffed his hands into his pockets, his thoughts dark as he hurried back towards the mall. The entire time he'd walked Sam home, she hadn't done much more than blink and stare around in dazed confusion. As much as Sam and Tucker argued about vegan versus carnivore and dissecting things in biology, and ethics… he knew that the two were too close to really do something to hurt the other. Tucker knew that buying a real leather coat crossed a very clear line.

"He'd better be overshadowed," Danny muttered, pushing open the mall door and scanning for his friend. The thought of one of his friends intentionally hurting the other sent a sour note through Danny's stomach. "And if he's not, I'd better find him before Sam wakes up and kills him."

Over and over, Danny had tried to figure out a reason for Tucker's sudden desire to be a 'bad boy'. Yes, Tucker had always had a thing about trying to attract girls, but he'd never gone to this extreme before. There was obviously something wrong with his friend, but Danny wouldn't know what it was until he got to talk to Tucker.

He slipped through the food court, desperate to find Tucker and figure out what was wrong before Sam decided to kill someone. Distracted by a glimpse of a black hat, Danny walked into someone coming out of a store, sending them both tumbling to the ground. "Ow," Danny moaned, pushing himself up. "Sorry."

"Yeah, sorry," Dash Baxter said as he got back to his feet.

Danny's eyes widened. "Dash!" he yelped, staggering to his feet and slipping back away from his daily tormentor. He didn't have time to be beaten up; he needed to find Tucker!

"You okay, Danny?" Dash asked, a concerned smile on his face.

"Ye-yeah," Danny stuttered, confused, as Dash picked up the bag he'd dropped and walked away without another word. Danny stood shock-still for a long moment, his mouth working wordlessly, staring as Dash vanished into the crowd. "Freaky," he whispered. "What's wrong with Dash?"

He took a step to follow Dash, but then shook his head and turned to keep looking for Tucker. "Tucker, where are you?"

* * *

"Wow, this is a big mansion," Kim said softly as the Possible family car pulled into the long driveway. Up near the door, a dozen or so other cars were already parked, people making their way up to the large front doors. "Very… villainous."

"Kimmy, Vlad Masters isn't a villain," her mother said from the front seat. "He's a philanthropist."

"Trust me, Mom, I know villain lairs like the back of my hand, and this one is screaming villain."

James Possible made a soft noise in the back of his throat. "Well, no saving the day until he shows off the latest upgrade in rocket technology and signs the paperwork continuing our funding for another year, okay?"

Kim crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. "Fine."

"Can we get out now?" the twins chimed even as the car was pulling to a stop.

"Remember the rules, boys?" their father asked. When he received two nods, James put the car into park. "If you break the sound barrier – even if it's not your fault – we're going straight home."

"Got it!" they shouted, tumbling from the car and racing towards the front doors of the mansion.

Kim hesitated in the back seat, staring up at the looming heights of the mansion, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. "I don't like this place," she whispered to herself, finally clicking the button on her seat belt and pulling herself out of the car. "There's definitely something up here."

Watching her parents follow Jim and Tim towards the front doors, Kim pulled the Kimmunicator out of her pocket and flipped it on. "Wade?"

"Hey, Kim," Wade said as he appeared on the screen. "How's it going?"

"Do you have the information on Masters?"

Wade looked a little offended. "Of course. I'll send you copy of what I found," he muttered as he clicked a few buttons, the small Kimmunicator beeping as it received the data.

"You're the best, Wade," Kim said with a smile. "This place is seriously creepy."

"The information's not much better," Wade said with a shrug. "On the surface, Masters is exactly what every billionaire in the world should be – smart, rich, and willing to give away tons of money to organizations that use it to better the world. He's got a list of recommendations longer than I am tall."

Kim arched an eyebrow at Wade's wording. "On the surface?"

Wade nodded. "It took some work to find out more than that. Whoever is covering Master's tracks is a genius. Not as good as me, obviously, but definitely top notch."

"What'd you find?"

"Masters isn't nearly as clean as he looks. He secretly owns hundreds of organizations – many of them are deep in the black market – and he's got several monopolies going on major businesses. There are hundreds of references to people that have crossed his path and have 'vanished' in some form or another. Anyone he runs up against doesn't stand for long, but there's never anything to pin on anyone. Not to mention all the rumors that Masters has a lot of dealings with highly valuable stolen merchandise."

Kim sighed, looking around at the manicured lawn. "I can't ever just go on a vacation, can I?"

Wade smiled a little. "Be careful, Kim. This isn't like the super villain you're used to fighting – Masters is a different breed. You'll be gone before you can even scream for help, if what I'm reading is right."

"No exploding golf balls?" Kim asked. "No monkey ninjas? No life-sized Cuddle Buddies?"

"Nope, nope, and nope. But I'm sure he's got something up his sleeve if he needs it."

Kim bit her lip. "You think I need Ron?"

A secret smile played across Wade's lips. "I think Ron's a little busy right now, but I'll keep tabs on you and send him if you need him, alright? I'll have a high-speed transport standing by for him."

"He's busy? Doing what?"

Wade's smile grew. "I believe he's calling it 'Operation Gherkin'."

* * *

Tucker was standing in the back corner of the Amity Park Technology Exchange, somewhere between the flat screen TVs and the home sound systems, a dark look on his face as he studied the DVD/sound mixer sitting on the shelf in front of him. "I'm not good enough for her?" he muttered darkly. "I have horrible pick up lines, do I? Nobody says that to Tucker Foley. I'll show her who's not good enough for whom."

"Can I help you?" a salesperson said, stepping forwards with a smile on his face. "The X14 model is terrific. It's got Blu-Ray compatibility and fifteen different sound settings for your surround sound. One of the best on the market."

Tucker snorted. "You've got no idea what you're talking about. The Diren325 over there," he waved, "is heads better than this one."

The salesman's smile became a little forced. "Inside the price range-"

"It doesn't matter anyways," Tucker interrupted. "I don't want it to watch movies on, so I really don't care. This one has higher quality wiring, which is what I'm going to need if it's going to withstand the electrical current I'm going to run through it."

"Oh. Well, can I answer any questions for you?"

"No." Tucker stared at the salesman with a flat look in his eye. "I know at least twice as much about this equipment and I don't want to listen to you get all the facts wrong. Go away."

"Um…" The salesman hesitated for a moment. "Well, when you're ready to pay for it…"

"Yeah, yeah," Tucker muttered, already turning back to examine device on the shelf. "If I hook that up to some of those speakers over there, amp up the power enough, and get the right ring tone off my PDA…" He picked up the display model and turned it over, studying the bottom. "Hey, Sales Guy," he called. When the salesman reappeared, Tucker smiled at him. "You wouldn't happen to have a Phillips screw driver on you, would you?"

* * *

Uploaded 10/13/10  
Another to be continued?  
Thanks for reading!


	62. King George

_Got through most of my emails so I was like, what the heck, why not?_

_Still cleaning up my desktop, getting rid of files I'm not going to do anything with so I can focus on what needs to get done. Maybe not do anything with... I think this is an old dA upload?  
_

* * *

**King George**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

Danny Fenton was sitting in the top-most branch of the second-tallest tree in Amity Park. It used to be the third-tallest tree until Skulker took out the tallest three only a few weeks ago, but that was really beside the point. Danny's feet were up almost higher than his head, ankles crossed, his arms behind his head. The branch, which never should have held his weight, was barely bending with strain. It was like he weighed nothing more than the air itself.

He was staring at the clouds, really paying attention to nothing. At the top of this tree, there wasn't much that could bother him. The random brave (read: insane) ghost that still attempted to haunt Amity Park, but Danny would have known it was coming from a mile away. A random brave (read: stupid) ghost _hunter_ trying to get the reward still on Danny's head, but there wasn't a human out there that could hold a candle to the half-ghost. None of them had really even been a challenge for years.

Of course, there was Vlad, but Danny hadn't seen hide, hair, or rumor of the man since that fiasco in New York just shy of Danny's eighteenth birthday. Some days, Danny dreamed that the humorless bachelor had curled up in a corner and died. Or finally forgot to toe the line in the ghost zone and got what had been coming to him for decades. In any case, Vlad wasn't someone to worry about.

So really there was no reason for Danny Fenton to be doing anything other than watching the clouds go by. Except for that distant clatter of keys on a computer keyboard, nothing but the wind was disturbing his lazy afternoon.

...wait, computer keys?

Danny sat up, pricking up his ears and turning his head from side to side to find the source of the sound. It wasn't something one expected to hear on a sunny summer afternoon at the top of the second-tallest tree in town. But the sound was coming from nowhere and everywhere, seeming to echo from the air itself.

"Ghostwriter," Danny sighed. "We had a deal, remember? You can only bug me during the month of December." The young man froze at the unexpected rhyme, his heart almost stopping for a moment in time. "Great," he muttered with a quiet moan, inordinately glad that he was alone.

Danny could almost hear the ghost's voice, reading the words with a quiet rejoice. "I remember that," the writing ghost said, "it's not yet December, don't fret and don't dread. I came with a message, a warning, a quest - soon you'll be visited by a long forgotten guest."

"Let me guess: three ghosts, future, present, and past? Finish _that_ story and it's you that I'll blast."

"No," the ghost chuckled, "Just one and not three. I just thought I'd tell you to not fall from your tree."

"I'm not going to fall," Danny mumbled. "I haven't fallen since..." he trailed off, thinking about the last time he'd fallen. It was a couple of weeks ago, honestly, and he'd been sitting on a similar-type tree.

By the time Danny decided to take the ghost's rhythmic warning somewhat serious, it was a bit too late.

She was right there.

And Danny fell. His stomach plummeted into his abdomen, his arms and legs stretched out as his body passed through branches of the tree. "No!" he screamed, his body suddenly heavy as stone, his ability to fly vanishing from his grasp.

She reached for him, her pale, faint arm reaching out to grab his had, somehow stretching her arm to pull at him... but Danny slammed into something too soft to be the ground and it was over.

He wrenched himself awake, sweat dripping down his face, his heart racing. "Holy..." he whispered, struggling to get his breathing under control. He pushed the clingy, sweat-soaked blankets away from his body, and sat up, his arms trembling.

Finally he managed to take a deep breath and reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead. His fingers caught on the strange circlet curling around his head, copper and emerald stones. One sharp edge drew blood from a fingertip, but Danny barely noticed. "I hate that dream."

Her. She. She showed up in his dreams now and then, only to scare him half to death. He didn't even know who she was, not really. He'd seen her once, years ago, and she'd been haunting his nightmares ever since. Knocking him from his perch, making him fall.

And all because he'd ignored a simple warning from a ghost that had been trying to make right.

Her pointing, grasping, bony fingers. How cold they'd been as the men had held him down, yanking on his hair as they put the copper thing around his head, how she'd traced his face and pointed at him, sealing his doom. He'd heard she'd died not too long ago; she almost deserved to be a ghost.

Pushing himself to his feet, Danny walked over to the small sink and splashed some water on his face, grasping the cold edges of the sink and leaning his head against the small mirror. "Stop haunting me," he whispered, almost a prayer. "Stop."

"Go back to sleep, _freak_," came a hoarse voice.

Danny clenched his eyes closed and held his breath, controlling his temper. It wouldn't do him any good to do anything - it'd just cause the guards to release that gas that would make him go to sleep. After a long couple of heartbeats, he let out the breath and opened his eyes. Blue eyes were almost black in the darkness, the emerald crystal on his forehead gleaming and shining like a star. Black hair was cropped army-issue short, the face looking much older than the twenty-two it should have been.

His fingers curled tight, causing pain in his hands, but Danny ignored it. He glared at his reflection, trying desperately to ignore the tears forming in his eyes. "One more day," he murmured. "Hold on for one more day."

* * *

He heard the voices as he was brushing his teeth. The monsters around him were screaming and calling, laughing and jeering, calling out impossible threats and insane propositions. "I'll kiss you, pretty girl! Come closer!" someone yelled, his voice cutting above the rest.

Danny spit out the mouthful of toothpaste and ran his arm across his mouth, studying the front of his 'home'. The small window was barred and glowed slightly, showing the power of the ghost shield running through all the walls. Someone new had entered the compound.

He washed out his toothbrush and set it down on the small sink, then wandered towards the front of his cell. He never really could see much of the hallway, so he kept the shade on the window pulled most of the time. He really couldn't stand to see _them_. The monsters.

King George was right across the hallway. He wasn't really a King - everyone called him that because of the battered paper crown he tended to wear. Mad eyes stared out of a pocketed face, hands splayed against the bars on the window, his body barely covered by the tattered remains of the issued clothing, a glowing emerald crystal on his forehead. "DANIEL!" the monster yelled, pounding on the window.

Danny ignored the monster with the talent borne of years of practice, waiting to see who had entered the compound. It was Friday. Friday, September 17th.

Behind him, under the mattress of his bed, lay a much-folded post card of a far-away place, a dream land. Scrawled on the back was a promise.

Friday, September 17th.

Danny licked his lips and took a deep breath, hearing his breath catch and tremble in his lungs. "Please," he whispered. A hand came up and touched the small window, almost like that could hurry along the mysterious guests. "Please."

"PLEASE!" King George screamed, laughing so hard he disappeared beneath the window frame. He popped back up, his eyes gleaming with hatred and rage. "You'll never get out, they HATE you, you're here forever!"

Not that far away, a monster yelled with anger and insanity, the sound of a body slamming into a barred window echoing down the noisy hallway.

Danny ignored it all, focused on the hallway and the person that was going to turn the corner. It was going to be her. It had to be. That was her handwriting, those were her tears, that was her promise. Four years, and she'd be here.

A guard suddenly appeared in the window, slamming the bars with a short stick. "Back up," the man snapped, his face mostly hidden behind a plate of glass. "You know the drill."

Danny did. He hesitated a moment longer, hoping to catch sight of her, but he couldn't see anything past the stoic guard. His teeth ground together as he took a number of steps back and settled down at the small table.

Two chairs. He always thought they did that to torture him. Always one was empty.

Now it suddenly seemed like a promise. Like it was designed for someone else to sit in and keep him company.

The guard disappeared from the window, the door clicking and jingling as locks were undone and things were moved around. Danny's heart was in his throat, his palms clammy, his foot tapping anxiously. It was taking too long. He wanted to get up and help, but he knew that would do nothing.

Finally the noises stopped, the door quietly swinging open on rarely-used hinges. Danny stayed where he was, watching the guard loom in the doorway and glare at him.

Then he moved and there she was.

"Hi," she said softly, brushing a piece of black hair behind her ear. She'd let it grow in the four years since they'd seen each other and now it fell past her shoulders. Shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, she waited for him to speak, but all he could do was stare at her and wonder at how beautiful she was.

"Hey," he managed, his mouth dry. "Nice to see you."

She licked her lips. "Yeah." She looked down, then took a step into his cell and looked up to meet his eyes. Her gorgeous, violet eyes flickered up to the emerald gem on his forehead and she seemed to be trapped.

Danny shifted in his seat, wishing he could reach up and take that stupid circlet off. Four years of dreaming about his moment, when she came to free him, and that thing was ruining everything. "You want to sit down?" He gestured at the chair - the empty, torturous chair that had been made for her. It had been here all along, waiting for someone to sit in, and now she was here.

She hesitated, then shook her head. "I'm not... I... I just needed to ask you something."

Letting his arm drop to his side, Danny felt his heart stop. Was she not here to free him? "What?"

"They said your name was Daniel..."

No... Danny's heart, still not beating, sank into his stomach. She couldn't believe all that...

"Why did you lie to me?" Her violet eyes were shining with tears. She reached up and wiped at her cheek, a ring glittering on her fourth finger.

Across the hall, King George started to laugh.

"I... Sam, I never lied to you." Danny got to his feet, but didn't move any closer to her. He just stood there, anger and sadness mixing in him whenever her eyes focused on that damned crystal on his forehead.

"You're just a ghost-" she started.

"No-"

"-that took over my best friend-"

"No-"

"-just like all the _rest of these monsters!_" she screamed, her voice shrieking over the insane laughter from across the hallway. "You _stole_ his body and his soul and he's locked away, screaming, and you just stare at me with his eyes and talk just like him and I _WANT TO KNOW WHY!_"

Danny let her voice slam into his brain, shattering what little reserve he had left. "Sam, I-"

"Don't call me that! Tell me why."

"I'm not one of those things," Danny insisted - like he did every day - but his voice wasn't nearly as strong as it had been a thousand iterations ago. He tried to ignore the dig at the girl of his dreams not wanting to hear him say her name. "I'm not a ghost, I'm just Danny."

"Then explain why that crystal glows when it touches you." Her voice was icy, pain echoing in it.

Danny reached up and touched the emerald gem. The sign of him being one of the monsters the human race had uncovered years ago. Ghosts locking themselves in human bodies, trapping the human mind in the darkness, sending both the human and the ghost into a tight spiral of insanity.

King George was still laughing.

"If you were what you say you are, that crystal wouldn't glow. And you know it," she whispered. "You're lying to me. You've been lying to everyone for almost a decade. I want to know why."

Danny stared at her, his hands limp by his sides. A hundred times he'd imagined this meeting, a hundred times he'd gone over what he'd say. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to believe him. He wasn't some _ghost_. He was Danny!

He didn't know what to say. So he just stared at her, wishing she would understand. But she didn't, and he had the sinking feeling that she never would.

"That's why I came here," she finally said, "to ask you. To hear it with Danny's voice - my _best friend's_ voice. To tell his parents what his murderer said."

"I'm not a murderer," Danny said softly.

"Danny's gone and he's never coming back. You're walking and talking in his body, but he's gone." Her body was shaking with anger and pain. "You murdered him."

"I _am_ him," Danny insisted, but his voice was hollow.

She shook her head, her eyes fixing on the crystal gem. The force of her glare made Danny flinch back and reach up to pull at the thing around his head. "I'm sorry, Danny," she said, softly and almost gently. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

Danny blinked at her for a long moment before he realized she wasn't talking to him, but to the human that was supposedly locked away inside of him. "Sam-"

She turned and stepped out of the cell.

"SAM!"

The door closed.

"_SAM!_"

And she wasn't ever coming back. Danny raced to the door and slammed his body into it, feeling the solidness of the wall. He pulled his fist back and rammed it into the wall again and again, tears flowing down his face. "Come back!" he screamed.

Four years of listening to monsters scream and laugh. Four years of being treated like he was one of them. Four years of dreaming that his friends were planning to come and rescue him. Four years of dreams and wishes...

And it was nothing more than a nightmare. Gas hissed from spots on the wall and Danny distantly recognized the sticky-sweet scent of the knock-out gas.

He screamed for her to come back even as he fell, his arms and legs spread out to catch the air. He could almost see the bony, cold finger of the woman that had resigned him to to this place reaching out to point at him. King George's insane laughter faded away to be replaced by a tiny voice - his voice, maybe, or the voice of someone else caught trapped inside of him - screaming in the back of his mind.

"Let me out let me out LET ME OUT!"

* * *

Uploaded 10/14/10  
Don't try to think about it too much...  
Thanks for reading!


	63. Tabula Rasa

_Random thing I wrote years ago. Was going to continue, but it's looking bleak - I haven't touched the file in almost two years. Thus... post it here and see what happens._

_Remember, ALL my stories are adoptable!  
_

_Now I need to go do some beta-ing...  
_

* * *

**Tabula Rasa (Blank Slate)**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

_The screams echoed through the small chamber, ripped from the mouth of the teenage boy that was tied to the table in the middle of an empty room. His back arched as green sparks of light played over his form, his shifting emerald eyes closed tightly in pain. Tears were leaking down his cheeks as his yells hit a new pitch, fingers clenching spasmodically as each bolt of electricity zipped through him._

_"We're holding steady at eighty percent."_

_"Increase the amperage."_

_"Sir, we don't want to destabilize..."_

_"Just do it. Increase to two hundred seventy-five amps."_

_Energy sparkled and coalesced around the boy as the energy was slowly increased. The shrieks of agony died away as the pain became too much and began to overload his mind, his body convulsing uncontrollably, pulling at the restraints. His consciousness was fluttering at the very edges of life, seconds from escaping into the calm peace of the afterlife._

_"Ninety percent and climbing."_

_"Good. Hold steady."_

_Suddenly, the boy went limp, his hands flopping loosely off the edges of the table and his head lolling to the side, his dimly glowing eyes half-open and unfocused. The energy coursing through him shut off milliseconds later, leaving the room eerily silent. Only the harsh sound of his unsteady breathing could be heard, evidence of the fact that the young ghost still 'lived'. _

_"One hundred percent reached."_

_"Start the reprogramming process immediately."_

_"Yes, sir."_

_That was when a strange bluish light passed over the boy's form. Everyone in the control room fell quiet as the simmering green eyes faded to a dull blue, the star-lit hair swirled into dusty black, and the boy's shimmering skin gained a much more human tone. The startled silence was broken by one man's huge grin and a single word:_

_"Excellent."_

* * *

I could feel the world around me before I was fully awake – it felt kind of strange to be thrust from the abyss of sleep into wakefulness in a single beat of time. There were two people in the room with me, I knew that instantly, even though my eyes were still closed. They were standing on either side of me; one was nervous, the other confident and haughty. Me… I was lying down on something kind of soft. Where was I? What had happened?

"Sir, you need to be careful. The data says that the reprogramming didn't last. We have no idea what the boy will be like when he wakes up."

'The boy'… that must be me. I wonder why they're talking about me. What's this about reprogramming? What does that mean?

"Don't be foolish." The confident person was speaking, his voice cutting through the soft silence like a knife. "He's just a boy."

"But sir, he could be violent… He should be restrained."

I opened my eyes a little, letting in a jumbled mess of a world that made no sense. The bright lights made my eyes water painfully and I quickly shut my eyes again, letting a small moan escape.

"He's awake."

"Obviously. Now leave us," the confident man sneered.

"But…"

Something cold and powerful swept through me and I gasped, my eyes flickering open again despite the harsh glare of the overhead lights. My fingers clenched into the sheets and my toes curled as another strange wave of that feeling swirled around me, accompanied by the barest hint of a bloody glow. There was the sound of the door opening and closing, and then the weird sensation died away.

I blinked a few times, trying to get my eyes to focus on something, and debated whether or not I'd enjoyed that odd feeling. It had been decidedly unpleasant and left a vague, bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, but the pure rush of feeling that… power?... flood through me had been incredible. I'd never felt anything like it before and a part of me wanted to feel it again. What was it? Where had it come from?

The white expanse overhead finally came into focus, the tiles and the lights forming a simple pattern on the ceiling. When a figure stepped up and came into my field of view, it took a moment to figure out how to get my eyes to train on him. The confident man I'd felt earlier arched an eyebrow and waited, studying me with his crystal blue eyes. Finally, when it became apparent I wasn't going to say anything, he spoke. "Good morning."

Swallowing heavily, I tried to form some words to say back. "Goo morin," I rasped, my tongue huge in my mouth.

The man smiled slightly and walked away, returning seconds later with a cup in his hands. "Do you happen to know who I am?"

I thought about it for a second and then shook my head. I'd never met the man before in my life.

He nodded slowly and gestured with the cup. "Let's get you sitting up so you can have a drink, eh?" With a small grin, he grabbed the controls to my bed and pressed a button, raising my head up slightly. "There you go."

My hands felt clumsy and too huge for my body as I reached for the cup he was holding out, succeeding in doing nothing more than tipping the cup over and spilling water onto my blanket. I felt a blush creep onto my cheeks at my lack of motor skills, but the man just smiled at me and went to refill the cup. "Sry," I managed to get out.

"You've been unconscious for a few days, I'm not surprised," the man replied simply, this time helping me hold the cup as I brought it to my lips. The water felt blessedly cool as it trickled down my throat. "How are you feeling?"

"Confused," I said, running my tongue over my teeth. My mouth tasted horrible and my teeth felt sticky – the small amount of water hadn't solved that at all – but it was a lot easier to form words. "Where am I? What happened?"

"You're at a government-run facility called SA-5. You were in an accident a few days ago and, due to your 'special' nature, you were transferred here for treatment."

'Special nature'? I stared at him for a moment, totally lost. What was so special about me?

"Unfortunately," the man continued, "your parents died in the accident – you have my condolences." His smile took on a sad note and he fiddled with the empty cup in his hands, rolling it back and forth between his palms. "Your mother was a one-of-a-kind lady."

My mother. I looked down at my hands as I tried to picture her in my head but I could come up with nothing but blackness. Startled, I went searching through my mind for other images. My father? Siblings? Friends? Everything was dark and empty.

Terrified, I started to throw my thoughts in every direction, looking for _anything_ that I could tie back to before I had woken up minutes before. Start with something simple. Two plus two is four. The opposite of red is green. My name is…

My name is…

"Who are you?" my voice whispered as I struggled to figure out who _I _was. How could I not know my own name? What was wrong with me?

"My name is Vlad Masters," the man was saying, but I wasn't really listening. "I was a friend of your parents."

My name is…

My name is…

_My name is… _

"Who am I?" I finally asked, looking up from the blankets to stare at the man, surprised by how watery my vision was. I was crying? Why was I crying? It's just a name…

Vlad appeared startled for a moment, but then his smile turned sympathetic. "You don't remember?" he asked softly. Setting the cup down on the small table next to my bed, he perched himself on the edge of my bed and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. _Something_ inside of me wanted to push him away, but the rest of me enjoyed the contact and the solid warmth. "Your name is Daniel."

"Daniel…" I repeated to myself, letting my eyes fall back to my hands. I didn't feel anything like a 'Daniel' – I thought it was a kind of stupid name. Who would name their kid 'Daniel'? But for a lack of anything better to call myself, I'd go with it. "I don't… remember." Glancing up into his crystal eyes, I was relieved when I saw acceptance of that in his gaze. "I don't know who I am."

"That's okay," he said simply before letting go and standing up. He straightened his jacket and brushed his hands on the fronts of his pants a few times. "The best doctors in the world are here, we'll get you figured out."

It was obvious he was getting ready to leave after just that short conversation; my heart sped up at the thought of being alone. The only person in the world I knew was leaving and I'd be alone. "Then what?" I asked in an attempt to get him to stay a little bit longer. "What will happen to me? If my parents are dead…" I knew I should feel something with that sentence – they _were_ my parents, after all – but they were just two people I didn't hold any memories of. I felt no more lingering sadness over their deaths than I would two strangers I read about in a newspaper. All I felt was the anxiety of being left alone.

Vlad's smile bloomed. "Daniel, you're going to come live with me, of course! I'm your godfather."

"With you?"

"Of course. We're alike, you and me," he said, reaching over to pat my shoulder. For the first time I noticed that there was a little bit of awkwardness in his actions, almost like he wasn't used to dealing with other people. Almost like the small displays of affection were forced or planned, rather than being realistic. "Special."

Another flood of that greasy-heady energy poured out of him and into me as he said that word, making my fingers curl a little and my eyes burn strangely. I blinked furiously a few times and the feeling faded. "What do you mean?" I asked. "How am I 'special'?"

Vlad tapped his toe for a moment, then walked over to one of the small dressers and grabbed a hand-held mirror. He held it up before me. For a few seconds all I could do was stare at the strange boy in the mirror's surface. Maybe sixteen or seventeen years old, sparkling blue eyes, closely cropped black hair. I ran a hand through my hair, wondering why such short hair felt odd under my palms, and let my hand rest at the back of my neck for a moment. I looked up at Vlad, confused. What was my reflection supposed to show me?

"Watch," he said softly and his eyes flickered to a glowing red.

I gasped, unconsciously drawing away from him. Another curl of that strange power brushed through me and I watched my reflection, in terrified amazement, as my pupils dilated and then…

My eyes flashed an impossibly bright green, that familiar burning ache flooding through them.

"You have a power inside of you, Daniel," Vlad said simply, letting the mirror drop into my lap. I ignored it, moving my gaze to fix onto his face. "It's something that we share – the two of us are unique in the world."

"How…?" I didn't know exactly what I was trying to ask, all I knew was that I was confused and scared. "What…?"

He smiled at me once again as he straightened and took a step away from my bed. "All in good time, Daniel. I'll teach you how to use that power properly when you're feeling better. For now, don't let it worry you."

Don't let it worry me? I blinked at him doubtfully as he took another step away from me, headed towards the door. "But…"

"The doctor will be in to check on you in a few minutes," Vlad said, overriding my objections. "And I'll be back with some supper later. We can talk more then, son."

For some reason, I felt the intense desire to tell Vlad that I wasn't his son, but I bit it back and just nodded slowly. He obviously had a lot of important things to do – things that were much more important than some boy who didn't even know his own name. "Okay…"

He grinned at me and then vanished through the door, letting it click closed behind him.

I stared at the door for a long few minutes, too confused to do much more than sit still. My head was starting to hurt, my eyes were aching, and I was tired, but I couldn't to go back to sleep. Too many questions were buzzing around in my head like flies. Glancing down at the mirror in my lap, I studied my reflection carefully for a moment. I was 'special'? I had some kind of power locked inside of me? There was a small scar on my chin and another on my forehead, but otherwise I looked perfectly normal.

But that green light in my eyes…

My head tipped to the side a little as I concentrated, searching for that odd feeling that had swamped through me when Vlad had… done whatever he'd done. I couldn't find anything and I eventually stopped trying, the intense focus only making my head hurt worse. Outwardly, I looked normal. Inside, I _felt_ normal. How had Vlad done that trick with my eyes?

The door opened suddenly, jerking me out of my thoughts. I felt a wash of nervousness slip through the doorway a moment for the doctor appeared, his eyes flickering over to me before fixing down on his board. "How are you feeling, Danny?"

That feeling… the ability to know what other people were feeling… that wasn't normal. A moment of confusion curled through me as I wondered how I could know other people's emotions. Was this part of being 'special'? "My head hurts," I answered slowly.

A small smile drifted onto the doctor's face and I felt a small wave of relief from him. "No doubt – but that's perfectly normal. You suffered from some pretty severe shocks."

"Shocks?" I asked.

"Electrical shocks," he said as he walked up to me and pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket. "Look straight ahead for me, Danny." I did as I was asked and he shined the light into my eyes. "Much better," he muttered. "I wasn't getting any reaction from your left eye earlier – I was worried about some brain damage."

"I don't remember anything…"

"Mr. Masters told me about that. We'll run you through a few tests later, but I'm sure you'll get your memories back eventually."

I looked at him as he busied himself writing on his clipboard, _feeling_ the nervousness racing off of his form. He looked calm and business-like, but inside he was like a storm of emotions. Why would he be so nervous? Was he lying to me?

"I'll get you something for your head; you should get some sleep," he said, not looking up as he set the clipboard on the counter and unlocked one of the drawers in the cabinet. "Everything will be fine, Danny, don't worry."

This was the second person to tell me not to worry; I wasn't sure how I was supposed to accomplish that. I didn't know who I was, I didn't know what was happening, I didn't know why I was in here, and apparently I had some 'special' power. How was I supposed to just sit here and not worry about anything?

He handed me a cup of water and two small pills. "Swallow these for me, Danny."

Popping them into my mouth, I took the small cup – pleased that I had recovered enough motor control to not spill it all over the bed this time – and drank the two pills down. "Thanks," I said as I handed the cup back.

"Those will help you sleep," he said, pausing and just watching me for a moment, the cup held in his fingers. Nervous fear was still boiling out of him, but I felt a small trickle of compassion tinge his emotions. "Everything will be fine," he said again. Finally tossing the plastic cup into the garbage, he reset my bed to be flat and left the controls close enough so that I could reach it when I woke up.

My eyes were feeling heavy – I doubted that the pills he'd given me were already taking effect, but I was already tired. Lying down only made it more obvious. "Yeah," I agreed softly and let my eyes close.

Warm fingers brushed against my forehead for a moment. "You're the strangest ghost I've ever met, Danny," the doctor breathed in a way that made me think I wasn't supposed to have heard him.

Ghost? How could I be a ghost… I wasn't dead, was I?

I supposed I should have felt a bit of fear at that idea, maybe a little anxiety over possibly being dead, but I was too tired. The question floated out of my head almost instantly. Letting go of consciousness, I fell into the darkness of sleep and the only thought in my mind was the fact that 'Danny' seemed like a name I could wrap my mind around.

* * *

"Come along, Daniel."

I wrapped my arms around my chest, enjoying the warmth of the jacket Vlad had gotten for me now that we were out in the frigid cold. The area around SA-5 had been warm, but after hours and hours of driving, snow littered the ground outside Vlad's limo and my breath plumed in front of me. I closed the limo door behind me, trying to ignore the fact that my arms were still aching from all of the blood that the doctors had drawn before they had allowed me to finally leave their clutches.

Two days – that was how long I'd spent in that room before convincing Vlad that I'd be better off somewhere else. He had been reluctant to let me leave, but he'd finally given in to my consistent pestering. Constantly feeling the emotions of the doctors had gotten on my nerves and the food was disgusting, but that wasn't my main motivation for wanting to leave. I grinned to myself as my feet crunched through to freshly fallen snow towards Vlad's home. Maybe I would finally get some answers to my questions.

Vlad, I'd learned, was very secretive. Getting any sort of a straight answer out of him was a battle – I knew little more about my life before the accident now than I had when I'd woken up. And getting him to tell me _anything_ about my 'special abilities' was flat out impossible. All he would tell me was that 'we'd talk about it later'. It didn't take a genius to realize that he didn't want the doctors to know he was like me and, not really knowing much about what was going on, I had kept it a secret as well. Now that we were alone, however, I was sure that he'd be willing to talk.

"It's big," I said as I caught up with him, studying the mansion. Green and gold accents littered the old-style building that was to be my new home.

"It's smaller than the last one," Vlad said with a small sigh. "I got rid of the third drawing room and the extra home theater – it felt a little extraneous."

I blinked at him. _Extra_ home theater? "What happened to your last house?"

He looked at me, arching an eyebrow in a by now very familiar expression. I usually read it as 'you should know the answer that question already' and it drove me nuts. "You blew it up."

That stopped me dead in my tracks. "I… did?"

He nodded as he kept walking. "I trust you'll keep a tighter control over your abilities this time around."

"I blew up a whole building?" I repeated dully, disbelief obvious in my voice. I still hadn't been able to recreate the strange green-eyes trick, much less muster up the energy to destroy a _mansion_.

"You're quite hard on my homes, Daniel," he said as I finally got my feet working again. "I'll show you around, but after that you'll be on your own until supper."

That was the way Vlad worked, I'd found. Short conversations that got right to the point with almost no veering off on tangents allowed. The only tangent I could consistently get him to fall for was questions about my mother – it was obvious that he'd loved her at some point, perhaps still had feelings for her. That had, at first, left me feeling a little odd, but then I'd decided that she was dead and it didn't really matter anymore. "Okay," I murmured.

He hesitated after he turned the key in the lock, looking over at me. "Daniel… I know you have questions…"

I glanced up at him, hopeful that he might finally answer some of them.

"…But you need to be patient. You've got to learn to use your abilities the _right_ way." He studied me with his crystal eyes for a moment. "That, and you need to remember that what we can do is a secret." I nodded, but he kept talking. "Anyone that you meet inside here can't know about your abilities."

"Yeah, I know," I muttered.

"One other thing," he said softly. "There is an old friend living with me – her name is Maddie. About three weeks ago, she lost her family to a horrible accident."

I looked at him, not knowing what to say about that. I felt sorry for the lady and a little curious about the coincidence of both our families dying only a couple weeks apart, but that was about it. Why would Vlad care to stop and tell me about it? "And…?"

"Her son's name was Danny."

I flinched a little at that, realizing the connection.

Vlad went on, his voice soft. "You bear an unfortunate resemblance to her son – he was about your age. It would be… prudent… for you to keep out of her way as much as possible. I would appreciate you not antagonizing her any more than absolutely necessary; she is a very good friend of mine and she is taking the loss of her family very hard."

Nodding, I glanced at the door, suddenly feeling a lot of sympathy for the woman. "Okay, yeah."

He smiled a little at that, then pushed open the huge front doors and stepped inside. "Welcome home, son."

* * *

Vlad's home was _huge_. I actually ended up with something more like an apartment than a bedroom – my own bathroom, living area, and even a small kitchen. Everything was stocked with top-of-the-line stuff, including a flat screen TV and a next-generation game console, and my closet already contained an array of clothes.

Through the large windows of my bedroom, I could see the massive expanse of his back yard and had already spotted a snow-filled swimming pool, something I thought might have been a tennis court, and an area that looked like a running track. White-cloaked trees dotted the large lawn here and there, and a gigantic winter garden spread out along one side of the yard.

Beyond my actual space, Vlad's house was nothing less than absolutely amazing. He had a massive home theater, a game room that would have put a lot of arcades to shame, and even a greenhouse full of plants I'd never seen before. I prowled the hallways for hours before supper started, trying to get a feel for where everything was, and learn how to keep from getting lost.

It was my third time slipping through the greenhouse (I'd found it to be a convenient way to get back to the main hall) when I heard something. Curious, I drifted through the bushes, hesitating while still in the shadows. A woman with shoulder-length reddish-brown hair was sitting on a patch of grass under a tree and crying. My first instinct was to walk up to her and ask her if something was wrong, but then I remembered Vlad's warning. This lady must be the Maddie that Vlad had told me about.

I could feel her emotions tingeing the air, and for a long moment I wished I couldn't. She was trapped so deeply in the abyss of her sadness that it started to pull me in as well. To have lost a family… and to remember it…

I stayed for just a few moments longer before backing out of the bushes and heading towards the dining room. I had time left to explore, but I really didn't feel like it anymore. Maddie's sadness had brushed something inside of me and for the first time I felt the loss of my own family. People I couldn't remember and didn't spend more than a few minutes each day thinking about.

Dropping onto the steps a few dozen feet from the door that lead to the dining room, I put my chin in my hands and waited, trying to remember the family I'd lost. According to Vlad it had been a week since the accident and I still didn't have even a faint memory of what happened to me. Now and then I'd get these 'feelings' – like the feeling that my hair should be longer – but I was never sure that they connected to anything.

It all felt even worse because Vlad refused to talk to me about my family. He'd mentioned, in passing, that my father was an 'annoying dolt' and that my mother was a 'beautiful genius', but that was it. I had no names, I had no images, and I had no idea who they'd actually been.

In a small fit of frustration, I realized that I didn't even know my own last name yet.

After holding onto my righteous anger for a moment, I sighed and let it go, contenting myself with looking around the hallway and studying the collection of Packers' memorabilia. Trying to get answers out of Vlad would be like trying to get answers out of a brick wall. Besides, he'd already told me a number of times to 'be patient' and if I bothered to ask he'd just go off on some scientific ramble that I couldn't follow about 'jogging memories that I wasn't ready for' and somehow get me to agree that it was better for me to remember my memories on my own.

I'd get him to tell me eventually, that much I was sure of. In the mean time, my life didn't seem to be going so horribly and I wasn't a huge fan of getting dragged through what that woman was feeling. Would I react the same way as her when I remembered who it was that I'd lost? I kind of hoped not – she was in a lot of pain.

The stair above me creaked and I twisted around, ready to greet Vlad and finally get something to eat. Instead, I was met with a wave of impossible despair and a pair of tortured blue-green eyes. I jumped to my feet, thinking to try to keep my distance. "Hi… Maddie, right?" I asked.

She blinked at me and I felt a flare of surprise come off of her, followed by a swirling down even deeper into her depression. "Yes," she whispered. "You must be Daniel. Vlad told me you were coming to live with him."

I nodded, backing away from her overpowering emotions. "I'm… sorry… for your loss," I said, hoping she would be on her way and I would be free of the darkness surrounding her.

"Thank you," she whispered, her eyes unfocused and distant as she brushed past me and headed towards the dining room. I shivered when she passed too close, making my breath catch in my throat and my mind spin dangerously. Her despair seemed to funnel into me.

Wrinkling my nose when I finally got my head back together, I came to the belated observation that I'd have to eat supper with her. She was Vlad's guest – as was I, I guess – and there was only one dining room. …Actually, there were four, but only one was called a 'dining room'. The other three had names that I hadn't bothered to pay attention to.

"Daniel," Vlad said as he appeared in a doorway across the hall, "is dinner ready?"

I shrugged, not having been in the room yet. "Maddie's already in there."

A look passed over his eyes and he glanced over my shoulder into the dining room. "I have to find a way to break her out of this," he whispered, more to himself than to me.

Before he could reach the dining room, I drew up closer to him to ask a question. I skipped over the habitual 'can I ask you a question?' comment since I already knew the answer (that would be 'no'), and jumped right into it. "How can you stand to be so close to her?"

He drew up short, his crystal eyes fixing into mine. "What do you mean by that, Daniel?" he asked, a note of anger in his voice.

I backpedaled in my mind, obviously having said something that came out wrong. "I – I meant, she's so depressed and dark. How do you keep her emotions from overpowering you?" I fidgeted a little when he just continued to stare at me. Licking my lips after a few seconds of totally silence, I continued, "I can't get within ten feet of her without almost breaking down in tears. You said you could teach me about these 'abilities' I've got, and all I'm asking you for is advice."

I watched his eyes blink, struck by the fact that _something_ was wrong. Vlad was confused and surprised by my question. "You can," he said slowly after a long moment, "feel other people's emotions?"

And he couldn't. I knew that even as he asked his question, but my own question came out anyways. "Can't you?"

His response was a simple shake of his head, anger beginning to mix into his emotions, his eyes burning into my head. "You can feel my emotions as well?"

Nodding, I suddenly felt like a child having been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Even though I was a teenager, Vlad was making me feel like a little kid, and that was uncomfortable.

"I was… unaware," he said, "that was one of your abilities." For a beat more, he studied me, then his anger seemed to melt away. "As are you, I need to remember." Flicking a small smile in my direction, he crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. "Each of us have special talents, Daniel. It's not a bad thing that you can do something I cannot; there are things I can do that you will never have any hope of duplicating. I have to apologize for being angry with you; we haven't had a chance to talk things over."

"S'okay," I answered.

Vlad's gaze drifted to the dining room, then a contented smile settled a little onto his face. "If you feel unable to sit next to Maddie until we get this emotion thing figured out, I will have your dinner brought up to your room." He arched an eyebrow in my direction and I nodded.

"Thanks, Vlad."

"It works out for the best, perhaps," he continued pensively. "Keeping the two of your apart is…" he trailed off, then shook his head as if to clear the thoughts from his mind. "I'll have your dinner brought up immediately, son."

He vanished off into the dining room and I stood there for a moment, then shrugged. Before I had a chance to head upstairs, one of the maids appeared with my tray of food and I took it from her with a smile, promising not to drip gravy on the carpet.

* * *

I dropped onto a bench in the greenhouse, staring up at the glass ceiling, feeling frustrated and angry. Snow was slowly swirling down from the sky and collecting on the window panes, but I couldn't feel the cold since Vlad's greenhouse was kept at a summer-like temperature. Somehow, the calm surroundings and the quiet solitude were doing nothing for my heated temper.

I'd finally lost it while talking to Vlad and he had, quite literally, thrown me through a wall and told me to not come back until I'd settled down. I don't see as how it was really _my _fault; he'd been telling me all sorts of _impossible_ things and my head had started to hurt. There was just no way…

_"You're a half-ghost, Daniel. You were in an explosion a few years ago that bonded ectoplasm to your DNA. 'Phantom' is what you called yourself when you were using your ghost abilities – a rather childish name if you ask me, but you picked it and have managed to make quite a name for yourself, I can't deny that."_

I could still hear his words echoing around in my head. There's no such _thing _as ghosts. Half-ghost? I might not have memories of my life, but I do know some things and I was dead-positive that he was pulling my chain. That eye-glowing trick could be… something. Just a magic trick. Glowing contacts, maybe.

Besides, even if I'd _wanted_ to roll with it, even if I'd _tried_ to believe him, I'm just couldn't do what he was asking me to do.

_"Stop stalling, Daniel, and try. Feel that well of power inside of you and pull it up, feel it run through your chest and your arms, call that feeling to you. Invisibility, intangibility… those are two abilities that you have been able to do for years."_

There was just _nothing_ inside of me… and I really had tried. Vlad had taken me in, given me a place to live, and was being nice to me. Even though I thought what he was saying was totally insane, I _had_ tried – if out of respect for that than anything else. There was just nothing there.

_"You're just being stubborn. Do it already."_

My fingers clenched tightly around the seat of the bench and my teeth gritted as I remembered his cutting voice. The seventh or eighth time he yelled at me, I yelled back. In response, Vlad had simply walked _through_ his desk, picked me up with one hand, and tossed me through the wall. And I had just gone through it – no hole, no window, no door needed. Straight through a solid wall. Of all the impossible things in the world…

Despite that weird occurrence, I was still simmering angrily. He didn't need to _yell_ at me. I _was_ trying.

Truth be told, however, now that I knew it was possible, I'd probably try a little harder.

"You look like my son," a voice whispered and I flinched, twisting around. Vlad's friend was standing on the path a dozen feet away, her hands fisted in her black sweater, her eyes distant and hollow.

"Sorry," I answered, getting up off the bench with the intent to get out of her way. "Vlad told me to leave you alone…"

Maddie took a few steps towards me and I could feel the depths of her despair racing through the air. Swallowing heavily, I slid a step away from her until I could handle the intense feel of her. "He said your family died too… a car accident," she said.

I shrugged, surprised by that little bit of information. A car accident? Vlad hadn't even told me that much. "I don't remember, really."

"Why is it you look like my son?" she asked. "Why is he torturing me?" Tears were streaming down her cheeks. "Why won't he leave me alone? Was I that bad of a mother?"

"Um…" I slipped a few more steps farther away from her, wondering where Vlad was. There was something seriously wrong with this woman. "I don't… know?"

"Three weeks," she cried, "and he still won't let me sleep at night. Why?"

I stood still, staring at her as she broke down into tears, collapsing on the greenhouse floor as she cascaded farther into depression. I had no idea what to say or what to do. Glancing at the door, I wondered if I should go get Vlad. What should I say to her? I felt so horrible for what she was going through and it was strange how strongly her tears pulled at me – I was almost positive I wouldn't care so much if it were Vlad lying on the floor.

It almost felt like we were connected somehow, even though we'd never met.

"How… how'd he die?" I asked, wanting to help, but when my only answer was louder sobbing I backed away from her and bit my lip. That was obviously the wrong thing to say. "I'm… going to… go," I muttered, turning around and leaving the greenhouse at nearly a run.

I leaned against the wall of the hallway when the door clicked shut behind me, rubbing a hand over my heart. Maddie's emotions _hurt_. It was like a vortex of darkness, sucking me in and dragging me down and stabbing straight through my heart. After a moment the pain faded, but I still stood there. Was that what she was feeling – that intense pain? I couldn't feel Vlad's emotions nearly as well, so why was I feeling hers like that?

"Daniel." Looking up at Vlad's voice, I stared straight into his crystal blue eyes. He quirked an eyebrow upwards in that irritatingly familiar gesture and a tinge of concern edged into his emotions as he studied me. "Are you alright?" he asked.

Glancing back once at the door and imaging the sight of Maddie, curled on the floor, her heart ripping into pieces, I slowly nodded. "Yeah," I whispered. I might not be perfect, but I was a lot better than her. How much must she have loved her family to feel that much pain? To have built a whole world around them only to have them ripped away? "What happened to Maddie's family?"

Vlad blinked, then looked over towards the door I'd glanced at, understanding jumping into his eyes. "An explosion," Vlad said after a moment. "She was at a symposium while her husband and children stayed behind. The whole house was leveled in the explosion and all three of them died – eleven others died as well, it was a rather large explosion."

"It's strange," I said softly, "that her family and mine died so close together and you'd take us both in." It was just a simple comment, meant more as a compliment at how he'd open his house at the last moment, but the strange storm of emotions suddenly coming out of Vlad made me hesitate and look up at him. Why in the world would he be _nervous _about that simple comment? "It's very nice of you to take us both in so soon – not many would do that," I added, feeling the odd sweep of emotions fade out of him.

"I'm usually a pretty nice person," he said with a bit of a smile, "unless I'm being yelled at. Now, shall we continue?" He gestured towards his office.

I shrugged. "After you," I muttered.

Trailing him back to his office, my mind was spinning in circles. Why had Vlad been so nervous? I studied his hair as he walked, watching the white pony tail drift back and forth like a pendulum on a clock. Why couldn't I shake the feeling that there was there more to Vlad than I had thought?

* * *

Uploaded 10/16/10  
Yet more 'to be continued?' Someone really needs to write these for me...  
Thanks for reading!


	64. The Amber Bottle

_Not dead. But the world seems to be trying, believe me. ^^;_

_Running a contest on my dA page, if you're interested.  
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**The Amber Bottle  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

"What is it?" Danny asked, blinking down at the bottle in his hands in complete confusion.

"It's everything," the old man answered, his eyes glinting oddly in the bright summer day. All around the pair, people were bartering and selling random junk in the area's largest swap meet and citywide garage sale. The man's hands – curiously curled and tipped with fingernails that more than a little resembled claws – clenched reflexively and made a motion to take the bottle from Danny's hands. "But I'm not sure-"

"It's really… pretty," Danny interrupted, the last word coming out kind of belatedly, like he couldn't figure out what to properly say. He held the bottle up to the light, watching the sunshine filter through the ancient, amber-colored glass. Something inside – purplish, perhaps – was flickering and moving around. "It's like there's something in it."

The man snorted. "Nonsense. The bottle's empty, has been for ages. But it's not for children, so if you'd just give it back-"

"Nah, I've got a friend who'd like this." Danny continued to stare at it for a moment, then he lowered the hypnotic bottle and smiled at the man. "How much?"

The brown-red eyes of the man blinked a few times, an odd look crossing his face and his claw-like hands reflexively clutching at the tattered plaid shirt. "You're not listening," he said, the smile on his face looking a little fixed, "it's not for sa-"

A scream cut off what the man was saying – not that Danny was listening anyways – and both of them looked up. A few more shrieks of surprise and fear slammed through the crowd and the people around them started to mill in confusion, many people starting to herd families away from the directions of the screaming. "What the…" Danny whispered.

"Oh, no," the man in the plaid shirt whispered, unable to tear his eyes off of the vague purple glow in the distance, rapidly growing in size as the whatever-it-was-grew closer. "Kid, can I have-"

The man stopped; Danny was gone. The brown-red eyes widened and he looked around, his pocked and wrinkled face paling and looking fearful. Claw-like hands set onto the counter as he leaned forwards and stared around, strips of wood being torn from the table as the hands curled into fists.

A roar hissed through the crowd – loud as a clap of thunder but as soft as a hiss, slithering through minds and into ears, apparently searching for something. Or someone.

When the sounds reached the booth of the old man, it danced around the many bottles, shattering a dozen into small shards of light, but it found no man in a plaid shirt. The stand was empty, almost like nobody had ever been there. Not even the shadow of the man's footprints could be found.

Far above the now-empty stand, Danny Phantom had his hands on his hips and was searching for the source of the sounds and the shrieks. The young ghost hunter was usually rather quick to locate ghosts and spooks when they encroached on his territory, but this one was eluding him for a few precious seconds. Like trying to find someone in a house of mirrors, the sound – and the ghost's cold feel – were coming from just about every direction.

"Crud," Danny hissed, crossing his arms and glowering down at the odd purple light that was covering the street. People were still moving randomly, clearly still anxious about the sounds they had heard, but the random movement led Danny to realize they didn't know where it was coming from either. "What's the light for," he muttered – it wasn't really a question. By this point, Danny knew that 'strange' meant 'not good'.

The purple glow suddenly solidified into an odd, bubble-like shape, shrinking and twisting into a semi-human form seemingly clinging to the side of a building. The 'head' of the purple glow turned up and fixated on Danny. Then it shrieked – an odd sound with a myriad of hisses and snarls thrown in for good measure.

"There it is," Danny said, a small smile threatening to overpower the rush of adrenaline to his brain. His feet shifted outwards – a stabilizing move completely unnecessary when five stories in the air – and his hands curled into fists.

With one last scream, sending the people below running in panic, the humanoid purple glow pushed off from the wall and seared through the air towards Danny like a lightning bolt, wings bursting into existence on its back as it flew. Danny's green eyes widened at the thing's amazing speed, barely throwing himself to the side in time to avoid its strike. "Holy hell, it's fast!" Danny hissed.

The glow pumped its wings once, stopping its movement, then turned around. A few hissing, shrieking sounds accompanied a purple, hand-like shape being extended, claws growing and shrinking on the constantly-changing form.

"Yeah, I don't speak glow-worm," Danny said, shaking his head. He yanked a ball of energy out of the air, feeling it sting and fizzle against his nerves, and tossed it in the direction of the glowing monster.

The thing caught it and exploded – not at all quietly, either. It was a rather brilliant ball of pure light.

By the time Danny managed to pull his hands off his ears and stop the watering of his eyes, he was alone in the sky. Danny blinked furiously, clearing the spots from his eyes, and scanned the scattered clouds. The odd purple glow was gone, along with the creature that had apparently been made out of it. Danny's eyes trained down to the ground, watching people stop their panicking and start to calm down as they realized the danger was over.

"Okay…" Danny drawled, very, very slowly. "That was officially… seriously easy."

When he landed back on the ground and changed back into his more human appearance, Danny had decided that one strange occurrence was enough for one day and he was ready to go home. Putting the odd glow out of his mind – Danny was rather used to random things happening – he took to wondering if perhaps one of his friends would be online and willing to challenge him to a game of Doom V.

He took off up the street, not noticing the extra weight inside of his backpack. A tiny flicker of purple light inside of an amber glass swirled from side to side, trapped inside the glass that was clunking softly against an unused Thermos.

* * *

"No, no, no," the old man whispered, the cell phone held up tightly to his ear, "I didn't loose it." His red-brown eyes flickered from side to side, as if searching for something. "I realize-" His voice cut off suddenly and he waited, listening.

"Yes, boss, I understand," he said. "But you don't see-"

"Yes, boss. I just can't-"

The claw-like hand not holding the phone curled into a tight fist and the old man growled, the wrinkles on his face changing and rearranging in an inhuman way. Teeth elongated into fangs and purple lights flared in the old red-brown eyes. "Yes, boss," he snarled. "I do understand. I realize what will happen if it gets free."

As the fangs receded and his body reformed itself into an old man, he clicked the cell phone shut and sighed.

Then he smashed the cell phone against a wall and stalked away, searching for his stolen glass bottle.

* * *

"This is most troubling," the ghost said, wrinkling its hands desperately. "Clockwork, can't you do anything about this?"

The ghost of time narrowed its eyes slightly and shook its head. "I've told you, as I've told the entire human-ridden council, I'm not involving myself in these matters. Go report that to your masters." The old time ghost turned on its heel and stalked deeper into its lair.

"But this is different!" the ghost said, its mouth dropping open and his eyes widening. It followed Clockwork, its hands trembling. "The fate of... _everything_ rests on this!"

"I've done everything I'm willing to do," Clockwork said coldly. "Now leave me alone."

The younger ghost's mouth silently a few times. "But…"

Clockwork gestured with one of its hands, a fold in the space-time continuum appearing and making the fool minion vanish to someplace else. Clockwork momentarily considered sending the other ghost to the bottom of the sea to witness the tearing apart of Pangaea for itself, but sighed and simply sent the ghost back to its masters. The council would have more ghosts to send if one just disappeared.

Continuing on its way through its lair, Clockwork stopped in front of a mirror-like screen that was rapidly playing through various future possibilities. The ghost watched a moment, the scar-ripped eye narrowing as scene after scene of destruction played out.

In each one, an odd purple light met green ectoplasm in a blaze of power and energy that ripped apart the universe – for humans and ghosts alike.

Bang.

"Matter and antimatter," the ancient ghost whispered. "Ectoplasm and… anti-ectoplasm, I suppose. They totally annihilate each other on contact." The ghost sighed and shook its head.

On the screen, almost as if it were responding to Clockwork's thoughts, the image twisted to a scene from the past, something only a few hours old. An old man, seemingly human, stepping through a purple-shaded rift in the sky, a bottle clutched in his hands.

"Why anyone would wish to bring _that_ to this world," Clockwork mused, its hands wrapped around its staff, its mind busy. The ghost had access to nearly limitless amounts of information, but the creature in the form of the old man hadn't come from this universe, making it a mystery piece in the cosmic game of chess. "What is your plan?"

Suddenly, Clockwork reached out and ran its hand over the screen, changing it. It dissolved into a picture from the present, an image of a ghost-gifted teenager lying on his back on his bed, tossing a small amber bottle into the air. Inside the bottle, flares of purple anti-ectoplasm curled and swirled, millimeters away from the ectoplasm rushing through the boy's blood.

"Don't drop that," Clockwork mumbled before it could catch itself, even though the boy couldn't hear it. Then the ghost shook its head and moved away from the mirror, letting it return to flipping randomly through scenes of destruction and chaos.

Dropping it… that would be bad indeed.

* * *

Uploaded December 7, 2010  
Anti-ectoplasm had to come up sooner or later.  
Thanks for reading!


	65. Father's Duty

_I'm running through this happy, holiday-based story for my dA followers, so I needed something... different... to keep my nerves from frazzling at all the happiness. So here you go. :)_

_Remember that moment when Jack jumps in front of that hacky sack and gets covered in goo and tells Danny in this annoyed tone, "I don't like helping you"? This is sort of, a little bit, maybe, kind of based off that, only set in my own deranged mindscape and not really following the plot at all. Meaning: people don't use freakin' HACKY SACKS to fight off things and the damage done is a bit more than some glowing and possibly radioactive goop._

_Gah, there are so few episodes of this series I've actually SEEN and I want to rewrite them ALL. /storms away/  
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**Father's Duty  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

Danny's shoulders hurt. His neck hurt too, from the way his head was craned downwards, but he was completely silent. It wasn't that he was asleep or unconscious – people would expect that, seeing his arms bound tightly behind him and the way he was slumped in the corner of the government van. No, he was perfectly aware of his surroundings.

Perhaps it was shock that was holding his tongue.

The gun pressed against his head was cold and hard, the hand and arm it was attached to was calm and steady. In the long, quiet minutes that had stretched with the barrel touching his scalp, the hand had never wavered. For all Danny knew, it was a robot holding the gun. He refused to look up to check.

Tears were collecting in Danny's eyes, although he wasn't letting them lose to trickle down his pale face. His view was blurred, something he was oddly regretting. Why he would want to stare at his own blood-covered clothes was beyond him. Yet every time his eyes grew too watery to see, he would blink and clear them.

_Don't move_.

He wasn't planning on it. Then again, he wasn't really planning on anything right then. Everything had stopped, that moment when warm, red liquid had sprayed over him. It hadn't chosen to restart just yet.

_You're being charged with murder. _

It was all his fault. If he wouldn't have kept so many blasted secrets. If he wouldn't have gotten involved in this particular fight. If he wouldn't have snuck back to make sure everyone was okay.

A tear loosened from its keep and slid down his cheek, marring the dried blood that had splattered his face, and another tear followed. He squeezed his eyes closed tightly and leaned forwards, pressing his head into his legs. His pants were sticky and cool – his brain refused to process why – and his shoulders started to shake.

_You're being taken to a processing facility where you will be examined and destroyed._

Behind his eyelids, he watched flashes of his memory play out over and over. The sharp pain when he was pushed out of the way. The spray of iron-scented blood from an all-too-human heart. The soft sound of a body collapsing to the ground. The sharp screams of the people around him.

Each tidbit of the past made him flinch and fresh tears escape his eyes. His throat was clogging up, air have to work harder to make it into and out of his lungs, and his mouth felt dry and gooey. Somewhere in his mind, he realized he might be hyperventilating – having some sort of panic attack – but the rest of him was too caught up in his memories to care.

He clenched his fingers, feeling the nails dig in to his palms, and pulled his knees up to his chest, still refusing to look up. These men, these government agents, would never get to see him cry.

_You couldn't just kill him quickly, could you? Had it drag it out… Make it as cruel as possible for the family. I heard he's still in the hospital, his family holding out some little speck of hope he'll survive what you did to him._

Danny froze. With him being slightly less than alive, it had more of an affect then normal. Even his heart stopped beating for a few moments as he processed that. It wasn't until the words had echoed around in his head a dozen or so times that he allowed his body to restart and breath curled into his lungs.

Very slowly, he looked up. His eyes felt dry and red as he turned to gaze at the man holding the gun inches from his head. A cruel smile tilted the corners of the suit-wearing man, the barrel of the gun unwavering despite Danny's dead stare. "He's still alive?" Danny rasped, his throat tight and pained.

The man inclined his head, once. _Not for long. Not with that much damage._

Danny's head turned back to stare at his knees, his mind still trembling as images of what happened bombarded his thoughts. But now something new was curling its way through the horror.

Toes curled and leg muscles twitched. His bottom lip snuck between his teeth and his shoulders moved. Every ache and pain in his body made itself known in that moment, but Danny chose to disregard them all.

Really, the man in the suit should have realized he stood no chance against a half-ghost as powerful as Phantom. The strongest piece of offensive equipment available to the government was barely rated for a ghost at Danny's level and it was widely known that defensive technology was more weak and fallible than its offensive cousin.

By the time the man had registered that Danny's hands were free of their cuffs, Danny had already reached up and wrenched the gun out of the man's hands. Danny bounded to his feet and slammed the grip of the appropriated gun against the man's head in one smooth movement. Even as the unnamed agent was sliding bonelessly to the floor, Danny spun on his heel and aimed the gun at the second agent, his hands shaking.

The other man raised his hands. Danny slipped past him, sparing enough of his focus to slam an ectoblast at the doors to the van. When it fizzled out against a ghost shield, Danny upped the power. His third attempt – sick of wasting time in this van – was a massive blast that took out the shield, both doors, a section of a car unlucky enough to be parked outside, and almost burned through a brick wall. "Don't move," Danny said, breathing heavily as he stared at the man with his hands in the air.

There were shouts coming from outside. More government men were crowding around the van. Danny knew it was now or never.

He dropped the gun and fled.

* * *

Maddie was in the emergency room, blood drying on her clothes. None of it was hers, but she refused to take even a second to go and change. Not when there was a chance she'd miss…

No. She would stay here. He would have someone sitting by the side of his bed until he died, if that's what was going to happen.

She didn't want to admit that was even a possibility. The doctors were insistent, explaining about the damage and the loss of blood and on and on, but she had stopped listening. They didn't know him. They didn't know her husband.

Jack could survive anything.

She held his hand tightly, refusing to watch the machine forcing air into and out of Jack's lungs slowly inflate and deflate a small sack. His face had been cleaned of blood and his eyes were closed, but the tubes running to his mouth blocked her view of him. It was impossible to find a way to look at him and forget – just for a second – what had happened.

She'd seen it all with her own eyes and she couldn't quite believe it. She understood it in many ways, it was completely a Jack thing to do after all, but her brain refused to wrap around the fact that it had happened.

The two of them had long since gotten over their plan to live forever and the 'we won't ever get hurt' complex that had been following them since college. Having children had effectively ended that. They had sat down, talked about it, worried about it, planned for it…

But she had never actually thought one of them would be hurt – not this badly. Seeing the bloody, haphazard bandages on his chest slowly rise and fall and knowing that his breathing would probably stop soon was like having a chest filled with sharp needles.

She'd never get to lay her head on his chest again and listen to his heartbeat. She'd never get picked up by his strong arms, pulled tightly against his warm body, and told that everything would be alright. She'd never get to see him holding their children ever again.

The sounds of the ER were faint in the background, behind the disinfected curtain that hid her tragedy from the rest of the world. Someone was screaming, a child was crying, and more than a few people were arguing loudly back and forth. But all Maddie could hear were the gentle sounds of the unsteady heart monitor and the beating of her own heart.

"Jack," she whispered, squeezing his hand and carefully running her thumb over the soft skin between this thumb and first finger. He loved it when she did that.

A shriek of fear caught her attention, but she didn't look away from Jack – not just yet. It wasn't until that one shriek turned to dozens, the sounds of running feet and pressing bodies filling the air, that she turned to face the curtain separating her from the emergency room, still clinging desperately to Jack's hand.

She wouldn't leave him. Not now.

A whisper of cold had Maddie forcing down a shiver. Her back straightened slightly, her feet spreading, her muscles tensing. There was the sound of curtains moving, people screaming in fear, then the curtain before her was roughly yanked aside.

Phantom was standing there, panting hard, his green eyes red with tears and his white hair spattered with drying blood. When he saw her, he seemed to crumple to the ground, his knees giving out on him, tears tracing pale paths on his blood-smeared face.

_Stop where you are!_

He wasn't looking at her, not really. She'd been a cursory glance before his focus had changed to the prone figure behind her. Maddie's fingers tightened around Jack's hand and she inched backwards, her hips pressing solidly into the metal of the hospital bed frame.

_Phantom's over here! Get him surrounded!_

"He's dying," Phantom rasped, his body shivering.

Despite the lack of a question in the ghost's voice, Maddie found herself nodding, tears in her eyes. She couldn't help feeling a fierce moment of pity for the young spirit at the broken way his shoulders slumped at her nod and how his fingers curled into impotent fists.

"No," he whispered. He was staring at the floor, not paying a moment's attention to the government moving around the emergency room. A crackle of power curled around his body and he looked up, a strange light glowing in his eyes. "No."

_We move on my mark._

The ghost was on his feet before Maddie could move. He took the few steps to Jack's side and stared down at her dying husband. A tear fell from the ghost's face, landing on Jack's arm, then Phantom reached out and touched Jack's forehead. Maddie reached out to slap the ghost's hand away – how dare he touch Jack? – and Phantom simply vanished.

Maddie waited, listening to her own heartbeat, but there was no sign of the young ghost.

* * *

Jack sat in the center of his mind, cross-legged, staring down at his fingers. Normally, the interior of his mind was crowded with half-formed ideas and inventions, many covered in layers of dust and placed in Jack's seemingly random organizational strategy, but now the place was nearly empty. Jack wasn't entirely sure why, but he couldn't find it in him to truly care. His chest hurt too much.

Blackness was eating away at the edges on the room-like place. Floor and ceiling fell off in sections, crumbling away into the abyss, leaving Jack in a rapidly shrinking spot of light.

"Jack," came a voice.

The large man looked up, startled, and blinked when Phantom slowly took a seat on the ground a few feet away. The ghost looked horrible – faint and pale and rumpled, but at least lacking in the coating of blood Jack remembered him having. "Where'd you come from?" Jack had to ask.

The spirit stared at him for a long, silent moment, tears in his green eyes. "You're dying," Phantom said, his voice breaking, looking away.

"Yeah," Jack whispered.

"It's my fault."

Weaving his fingers together in his lap, Jack studied his young company. The boy's shoulders were curled, his head was bent and lowered, and his body was shivering. It struck something inside of him and Jack felt his heart skip. "It's not how I remember it."

The ghost looked up, shaking his head.

"I stepped in front of that attack. I chose to take it for you." Jack sighed and looked up, momentarily watching the encroaching blackness. "Always had a soft spot for kids. I didn't really think it through – my body just moved."

Phantom didn't look convinced. The ghost pulled his knees up to his chest and stared at Jack. "Still my fault." The words were almost too soft for Jack to hear.

"You didn't answer my question," Jack said, putting a bit of a smile on his face and reaching forwards to tap the ghost on the head. "Where'd you come from?"

"I possessed you," the ghost admitted quietly. "I don't like possessing people, but…"

"But you wanted my last conversation to be with you?" Jack arched an eyebrow. The blackness was rapidly chewing what was left of his light spot. "Steal the last of my secret inventions before I go?"

The ghost sniffled and shook his head. "No. I thought… I heal fast. Maybe this would help you."

_…Jack…_

Jack looked up at Maddie's voice, not that there was anything out there to see but light and black. Silence fell between the two, the unsteady sound of Jack's heartbeat the only noise to be heard. Every now and then, the young ghost would sniffle and rub at his eyes, but Jack paid him almost no mind. His last few moments of life weren't going to be taken up by some ghost.

"What's dying like?" Jack wondered – more to himself than anything else – but the ghost chose to answer.

"I don't know. I never actually died."

It took a long, dead moment before Jack processed that. His eyes focused on the ghost curled up on the ground in front of him, the various theories and inconsistencies he and Maddie had noted over the past year swirling through his mind. "What?"

"I got into an accident," Phantom whispered. "I'm not dead."

_…don't leave me…_

Half of the room had descended into blackness. "Oh," Jack breathed, small switches flipping in his brain, tiny wires crossing and uncrossing. Then he let out a shaky breath, his next word laden with meaning. "Oh."

"I don't want you to die," Danny murmured brokenly, tears in his eyes. "It's all my fault."

Jack took a few small steps forwards, kneeling down in front of his son. "It's not your fault," Jack said, pushing the messy hair out of Danny's green eyes, feeling tears pulling at his own eyes. His own death he had been okay dealing with – have Danny here, thinking it was his fault, that was almost too much. "Danny, it's not your fault."

The shattered look on Danny's face told him that none of his platitudes would stop the thought in the boy's head. So he just sat down next to his son, wrapped one of his arms around Danny's shoulders, and pulled him close. As Danny's shoulders shook in pain and sadness, Jack watched the blackness creep ever closer. It was perhaps ten feet away.

"I'm sorry," Danny said. "I should have told you, I shouldn't have gone back, I shouldn't have even been there in the first-"

"I'm sorry," Jack interrupted. He took a deep breath and shook his head. "I'm sorry I didn't figure this whole thing out sooner. It's not like you didn't leave a million clues behind you."

_…Jack!..._

His son was pressed up against his side, tears on his face, agony curled around him. And still the blackness slipped more of his world into shadow. Five feet.

"You have to go," Jack whispered. When Danny shook his head, Jack removed his arm from around Danny's shoulders and pulled the boy to his feet. "Leave, Danny."

"No…" Danny had a grip on his hand, refusing to let go. "You'll be okay, Dad. You're not going to-"

"Leave," Jack ordered as the blackness started to peel the ground under his son's feet. He set the last of his mind against the ghostly intruder, pushing hard, and he heard a faint scream of grief before he was simply alone.

_…charging…_

He really didn't even have time to do much other than smile – if he was going to die for saving his son's life, it was worth it – before the blackness took the last of him.

_…clear…_

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It was hours upon hours later when Maddie pulled the car to a stop beside the old park and turned the key. The sun was setting, staining the sky a dusty rose, and she took a steadying breath before getting out of the car and locking it behind her. Her eyes scanned the empty-seeming park, then she headed towards the old willow tree in the back corner.

Perhaps it was a mothering instinct that drew her there, or perhaps it was memories of Danny disappearing to the shelter of the old tree's hanging branches when he was younger, but either way she wasn't surprised when she brushed aside the long leaves and spotted her son sitting against the trunk. His knees were drawn up to his chest, his face buried in his arms. He looked up momentarily at the sound of her footsteps.

"You're not answering your phone," she said softly.

Danny shook his head, his black hair falling into his eyes.

She walked over the dirt and settled down next to him. The clothes she was wearing were borrowed – the hospital had refused to let her leave in her blood-covered jumpsuit – and she pulled him close to her. Danny leaned into her side, his body shaking.

"We have to talk, Danny."

Again, he shook his head, the trembling growing stronger. "I don't want to talk," he whispered, his voice breaking.

"I know," she said, pressing her lips to the top of his head and slowly rocking side to side. "But it'll be okay." She ran her hand slowly through his hair, tears in her eyes. On her fingers glinted two gold wedding rings. "It'll be okay."

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Uploaded December 11, 2010  
Sorry for the sad ending. But I had fun playing with different forms of chatter to emphasize importance. :)  
Thanks for reading!


	66. Fever

_Note: I've been seriously sick the past five months, battling a rather bad case of depression and anxiety. Sorry about all the reviews that I haven't been replying to - I've always meant to, but my life has been so bad lately that it just hasn't happened. THANK YOU if you've sent in a review I haven't replied to, and know that I read it and that it helped more than you know. I haven't had much to look forwards to and very little happiness in my life this winter, but each one of those reviews was a little bright spot of happiness and warmth._

_FINALLY starting to feel better. Actually better, not the 'medicated happiness' cloud I've been drifting around in for three months. _

_Here you go - the first of hopefully many new stories and updates. I've missed writing so badly! I started scribbling this down about an hour ago and I didn't want to stop. :) It's a bit raw, I'm a bit rusty, but at least it's something, right?  
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**Fever**_  
_A Danny Phantom Ficlet by Cori_  
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Danny often found himself in odd places and, more than once during his existence as a half-breed, had woken up to find himself in the weirdest locations. He had recently quipped that nothing could startle him anymore – there wasn't anything that could be worse than waking up in Skulker's lair. Again. Tucker had muttered back that he'd better knock on wood and Danny had laughed the comment off.

But when his eyes opened on one dreary Sunday morning in the fall of his Sophomore year, he spent a moment wishing he could go back and take Tucker's advice. Blue drapes were half-pulled over the rain-splattered window, a thick quilt seeped warmth into his tired body, and the vague smell of hidden fudge curled into his nose. He was in his parents' bedroom, tucked into their bed.

Yet, that wasn't what was so startling that morning. Danny – curled up and warm in his parents' bed, dressed in soft pajamas with the cut on his arm neatly bandaged – was in his ghost form. The arch-nemesis of ghost hunters, the fiend of Amity Park, the blight on humanity… asleep in a ghost hunter's bedroom.

With absolutely no idea how he'd gotten there.

Not knowing what was going on was generally not a good plan in Danny's book, so he levered himself out of bed, his body crying out at the loss of the heavy warmth of the quilt, and made his stumbling way towards the door. Head spinning slightly, the floor weaving like it was at sea, Danny ended up leaning against his mother's dresser, gazing into his reflection in his mother's mirror.

His eyes had dark circles under them, his cheeks sallow and sunken. White hair stood up on end, messy and tangled, like he'd gone to sleep after taking a shower. The flush of a fever still lingered in his pale skin.

"Ugh," Danny whispered, shaking his head at his own appearance. He raked a hand through his hair, but gave it up when his muscles groaned at the movement. The room spun a bit, prompting Danny to give up staring at himself. "Back to bed."

It sounded like a great plan, but he needed to find the safety of his own room first. A locked door, a few more hours of sleep, and Danny was sure he'd be fine. "Room," he muttered, managing to make it to the door, get it open, and stumble into the hallway.

Two doorways later, Danny was left staring at his room in confusion. The bed was propped up in a corner, the ecto-dehumidifier from the basement was humming delightedly on the damp carpet, and the room had a musty smell. "What the…"

"Sweetie, what are you doing up?"

Danny turned around, making sure to keep a firm grasp on the doorframe. His mother finished coming up the stairs and stopped, laundry basket perched on her hip, gazing at him in concern. "Huh?"

"You had a fever this morning when I checked. You should be lying down." She set down the basket, walking up to him.

Danny recoiled away from his mother, fear and confusion causing his heart to stammer. Ghost hunter meets ghost in hallway… but acts like he's not? "But-" He stopped when her hand came up and came to rest on his forehead. Finding himself unable to do anything but stare at her, his mouth moved silently as he waited for her decision. His hands were clammy, his body trembling.

What was going on?

"You're still too hot," she pronounced, grabbing his shoulders and twisting him around. "Back to bed."

"But-" he managed to get out as she directed back towards the bed he'd just escaped from. His brain scrambled, wires crossed, and the last word he expected popped out of his mouth – no doubt driven out by the recently pronounced fever – "Mom!"

She didn't hesitate, she didn't flinch, she just said, "What?"

"I- I just- I want-" Danny couldn't form a sentence, the unfortunate result of the combination of his fever-fuzzy brain, the tiredness that was seeping into his body, and the pure confusion over what was happening. He finally gave up trying to talk, focusing on making it back to bed without tripping over his own toes. He found it harder to do than expected.

The return to the darkness of his parents' bedroom heralded something new: the assault upon his nose of the rankness of the room he'd been sleeping in. Perhaps used to it before, he hadn't noticed until now.

"I'll open a window, sweetheart," his mother said when Danny balked at entering the room. "It's a bit stale in here. Get back in bed."

"I-" Danny trailed off, then basically collapsed back into the bed he'd just escaped. He watched as his mother moved silently across the room, opening up the window slightly and allowing the gentle patter of the rain to curl into the room. Then she turned and walked over, settling down next to him and bringing with her the wild scent of the rain. "Mom…"

She pressed against his chest, easily pushing him back against the soft pillows. Arranging the quilt back of his body, she leaned forwards and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "I'm sorry, Danny," she whispered.

"For what?" The words came out slightly slurred, an unexpected swell of exhaustion pulling his mind into the darkness of sleep.

"Lots of things," his mother said softly as Danny felt his eyes close. "You'll feel better when you wake up, then we'll talk, okay? Just sleep, sweetheart."

Danny wanted to protest, but that part of his mind couldn't get the memo to his mouth quickly enough. Warm, soft, and with his mother at his side, he fell back asleep.

His fever-born dreams tormented him. His friends were tortured in fire, their bodies roasted over coals and carved for the faceless King of the ghost zone to enjoy at the banquet. Danny stood by the King's side, heavy crown perched on his head, leering while a ketchup-covered Skulker bowed obediently. Screams of pain echoed through the dream-feast from his family as the ghostly guests poked and jabbed, enjoying the human 'entertainment'.

Then Vlad appeared, carrying a bucket of water, and threw it at Danny. The water soaked him to the skin, freezing cold in the ghostly chill of the afterlife, freezing him in place long enough for Vlad to land a punch that nearly broke Danny's jaw. _You promised!_ Vlad yelled, pulling the tablecloth off the banquet and sending his friends' half-eaten bodies tumbling to the floor. The elder half-ghost launched himself at Danny, wrapping him up firmly in the tablecloth. _I won't let you!_

Danny fell out of bed, the quilt tangled around his body. He let out a yelp of pain at the unexpectedly hard floor, struggling to wake up and get himself free at the same time. He had to get away from Vlad, he had to save his family, he had to…

He stopped when he finally got to his feet, gazing blankly at his parents' bedroom, allowing his body to relax as the knowledge that it was just a dream settled into his brain. "Ow," he whispered, rubbing the back of his skull – which had knocked against the ground quite firmly – and dropping down to sit on the bed.

A yawn suddenly fought its way out of his mouth and he stretched, his bones creaking and his muscles settling into place. The tired ache was gone, along with the spinning, dizzy feeling, but not the confused feeling that something was wrong. Footsteps sounded on the stairs – not so fast to be running, but definitely on a mission – and Danny blinked at the doorway.

"Oh yeah," he breathed, the memory of what had happened the last time he woke up stabbing through him. His mother… ghost…

He didn't have time to do anything more than realize he was still in ghost mode, in his parents' bed, when the door opened and his mother poked her head in. "Danny?" she asked softly when she noticed him sitting up. "Are you okay?"

Danny let his hand drop to his lap, giving up on rubbing his head – it wasn't helping. "Yeah," he said softly. Even the relaxation of having just woken up couldn't keep his body from tensing when she pushed the door open and slipped in, walking slowly over to him. "Fell out of bed."

"Ah," she said, perching on the edge of the bed. "You sound better, this time."

Danny couldn't help himself from asking, "This time?" even though it was probably the last thing he wanted to know at the moment. His heart was racing at the nearness of his parent, his body starting to sweat from the stress of being so tense.

"This is the fifth time you've woken up," she chuckled, reaching out a hand to press against his forehead. "You've been really out of it."

He flinched – just a touch – when he felt his mother's skin against his. She either didn't notice or pretended that she hadn't, holding her hand still and letting her eyes fall half closed as she concentrated on his forehead. Danny waited, but the nervousness and confusion over what was going on drove him to talk. "Mom?"

"Better," she said happily, a smile tickling at the corners of her mouth. "Your fever is going down."

Nodding slowly, Danny allowed his mother to grab the tangled quilt off the floor, straighten it out, and settle it around his legs. He just sat there, more than aware of his white hair, pale skin, and swirling green eyes. When she said nothing, Danny looked away from her, studying the pattern of the stitches in the old quilt. An entire conversation was hovering in front of his face, needing to be said, but Danny had no idea where the first word was.

The feel of his mother moving around to sit next to him, her weight pushing the bed down and causing him to lean against her slight, caused him to sigh a bit dejectedly. She snorted out a soft laugh, wrapping her arm around his shoulders, and slowly rocking both their bodies side to side. Silence enveloped the room, broken only by the distant patter of the continuing rainstorm.

"Love you, Danny," she finally said, squeezing her hand reassuringly against his shoulder. "Remember that."

"Yeah…" Danny whispered, his voice trailing off. He turned to glance into her face, only to find her gazing at him. "Mom… what happened?"

She was quiet for a long moment, then she asked, "What do you remember?"

Danny thought about it, a headache forming behind his eyes. "I came home from school," he finally said, his voice slow and soft, "and I wasn't feeling good. I… fell asleep on the couch?" It was more of a question than anything – his memory failed him after collapsing on the sofa and turning on some random history program.

"That was more than a week ago," his mother said, answering the question. As Danny's head tipped sideways to land on her shoulder, she quietly rocked back and forth. "You were really sick, Danny." There was a catch in her voice when she said that.

Danny didn't need to look up to see the tears that were brimming in his mother's eyes or to understand the meaning of that sentence. He closed his own eyes, unable to stop himself from reaching to feel the reassuring beat of his heart.

A hundred questions flooded his brain with that knowledge – too many to say and too many that he couldn't figure out how to say – and so he settled on one that seemed safe. "What happened to my bed?"

"A ghost," she said. "It dumped a five gallon pail of water on you a few days ago."

Danny sat up straighter, pushing away from the warmth of his mothers' body. He looked at her, the expression on his face demanding more information than that. The smile vanished off her face, gazing down at her hands, a distant look in her eyes when she spoke. "You were so sick… you couldn't even sit up without falling over. But that ghost… When it dumped that water on you…"

"What?" Danny whispered.

He felt the shudder that went through her body. She looked at him, confusion and fear filling her loving eyes. Silence settled for a long moment and Danny took a stab at the unspoken answer.

"Oh," Danny finally breathed, breaking eyes contact to stare at the rain. "Okay."

"Sam gave me the abbreviated story of…" she hesitated, "…you. What happened a year ago."

That statement settled a few of the questions that were curling through Danny's mind, although it freed a handful new ones. He settled on trying to count the raindrops that were sliding down the glass of the window, dripping away the endless seconds of awkward silence that filled the darkened room.

Five, six, seven…

Thirty-three, thirty-four…

Fifty-eight, fifty-nine…

"You're going to have to talk to me eventually."

Danny glanced at her, at the mock anger on her face and the fist propped on a hip causing a tiny smile to tug at the corners of his mouth. The glitter of fear that had sparkled in her eyes earlier was gone – or at least well hidden – and Danny felt his shoulders relax slightly. "I guess."

"You're going to have to talk quite a bit, kiddo," she added, lightly tapping his side with her elbow.

"Yeah, I know," he said softly, looking down at the slim, pale fingers weaving themselves together in his lap. His fingers started to get blurry, his shoulders creeping back up towards his ears. "I…"

Suddenly he was enveloped in a hug, his mother pulled him close and holding him tightly for a long moment. He just sat frozen, waiting for something to happen. "I'm glad you're okay," she whispered. "I love you and that's not going to change. I'm not going to push you, I'm not going to beg, and I'm not going to run away. I promise." There was a powerful note to her voice as she said the end of that, love and pride shining through her every word. "You're my son, Danny."

His hands crept up from his sides, finally hugging her back. "Love you too," he said.

She pulled away from the hug, settling her hands on his shoulders. "Food," she decided with a nod. "I'll get you some soup, you stay in bed."

Danny nodded back, trying to smile and not jostle the tears still trapped in his eyes. "Okay," he whispered.

"And," he continued, getting to her feet, "while you eat you're going to explain to me the Thermos in the freezer."

His head tipped to the side, his eyes narrowing in confusion. "What?"

"After you caught that ghost, you filled the Thermos with ketchup and stuffed it in the freezer," she said, moving towards the door.

"Seriously?" Danny asked, a snort of laughter breaking free from his nose, a real smile on his face.

She turned back to grin at him, "Oh yes. That's an explanation your father and I have been looking forwards to hearing."

Alone in the room, Danny wrapped the thick, heavy quilt around his shoulders and shook his head. Then, without really knowing why, Danny reached over and knocked on the wooden headboard. Feeling a slight sense of foreboding dissipate, Danny leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes. After all, there could be worse places than this for a half-breed to wake up.

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Uploaded March 19, 2011  
Had to be a disease fic, after being so sick. Right?  
Thanks for reading!


	67. Beach House

_For AnneriaWings, as she started the dang idea percolating last night**. **I blame you…_

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_**Beach House**__  
_A Danny Phantom Ficlet by Cori_  
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The ocean waves were a dreary blue-gray and the sun hung low in the cloud-enshrouded sky by the time Danny made it to the beach. He had taken off his normal and had his jeans rolled up just enough to stay out of the sand and surf. The original plan had been to go swimming – not even bother to unpack his bag, just jump in the ocean – but it was too cold for that.

He took a few steps closer to the chilled water, feeling the rain-swelled waves bite against his toes. A pleasant sort of smile was on his face, watching the surf crash against the shore and smelling the musty, salt-laden spray as it dusted his face. Overhead, a gull squawked and Danny looked up, his grin growing.

No ghosts. Check.

No school. Check.

No responsibilities. Check.

One. Whole. Month.

"YES!" he screamed, throwing his hand into the air and jumping for all he was worth. Just as he landed, a larger-than-average storm-blown wave slammed into the sand and soaked his pants up to his knees. Danny yelped at the cold, but laughed as he danced backwards towards drier sand. "This is _awesome!_"

"I'm glad someone likes it," Jazz muttered from behind him. Danny twisted around, his laugh continuing at the site of his sweater-wrapped sister glaring at the sandy beach. Her arms were crossed firmly, her neatly tied tennis shoes safely away from the clingy, rough sand. "A whole month of sand and salt and cold and _sharing a room_…"

Danny shook his head and turned to look back at the ocean. The place was storm-tossed today, but the weather forecast said perfect weather for the rest of the week. Sun and sand and swimming. Nothing could ruin this.

As the thought percolated through Danny's head he froze, looking around, but slowly relaxed as nothing bad happened. Spotting a piece of drift wood a few dozen feet down the shore, Danny made his way through the wet sand, leaving a trail of winding footprints behind him. It took no more than few moments for the grit-engrained wood to be in his hand and he carefully knocked on it.

"What in the world are you doing?" his sister demanded.

"Just… precautions."

The sigh that emerged at that answer had Danny rolling his eyes as he tossed the bit of wood into the oncoming wave. It sliced through the whitewater, vanishing for a moment before reappearing like a surfer on top. Tumbling to a stop near where it had originally lain, the wood glistened in the evening light.

"Come on," Jazz finally called, attempting to wrench Danny's attention away from a small hole that had suddenly appeared near the wood. Convinced a clam was hiding under the sand and it needed to be dug up, Danny took a step forwards, but Jazz stopped him. "Mom and Dad said you'd better move it!"

Sky-blue eyes turned to send his best puppy-dog eyes at the young woman. "It's _summer vacation_," he whined, setting the pout onto his face that Sam couldn't ever resist. "Can't it wait, like, five more minutes?"

Jazz, unlike Sam, had a number of defenses against her brother's charms. The first – and foremost, at the moment – being her dislike of standing on a beach when it was cold and there was no sun and too much wind. "No."

The pout dropped to a frown and Danny's shoulders drooped. "Fine," he mumbled, an odd, faint smile appearing on his face as he dragged his feet through the rough sand towards the small wooden walkway Jazz was perched on. Piles of sand stared to gather around his ankles, thickly coating his feet and legs. "As the master commands."

"Don't get sand on me," Jazz said, her eyes suddenly widening, her gaze fixed on Danny's wet, sand-drenched feet.

"Sorry, I got water in my ear. What'd you say?" Danny barely finished talking before he lunged at the walkway. Jazz backpedaled away from him, but the sandy crust on Danny's feet broke when they hit the hard surface and sand went flying in every direction. The wind chose that moment to gust, carrying the grit even farther.

"_Not in my hair!_" Jazz shrieked, brushing at her hair with her hands, taking the steps up to the house two at a time. "Do you know how hard that is to get out?"

Danny laughed, chasing after her, but froze just outside the door at the sound his mother's stern voice. "Get sand in here and you'll be on the first bus home, young man."

"But-"

"There's a foot-washing station. Use it," his mother interrupted, sticking her head out a small window for a moment to frown at him. "And don't forget to dry your feet, for goodness sake."

"But it's a _beach!"_ Danny whimpered. "There's sand everywhere!"

His mother raised an eyebrow, the look of 'do it now or die a slow, painful death' clear on her face, then vanished back into the window.

Danny sighed, glanced around, and simply phased the sand off his legs. The sand dropped to the deck in a little pile and Danny kicked at it with his feet, spreading it around. "Good enough," he decided, pushing open the squeaky screen door and slipping inside.

"Feet clean already?"

"Yeah!" Danny shouted back, headed towards the stairs that led towards the second floor of the small beach house. Both of the small bedrooms were located upstairs, each with a tiny balcony that overlooked the ocean. Danny had already claimed the bed near the deck's door – Jazz could suffer with the one near the bathroom – and was counting on getting to sleep on the balcony's lounge chair at least a dozen times this month.

"We're eating soon! Wash up!" his mother called up the stairs.

"Alright!" He pushed open the door to his bedroom and grinned when he spotted Jazz brushing a comb through her long hair. "It's just a little sand," he said.

Her gaze could have frozen him in place, were she a hybrid instead of Danny. "Mom says we're eating soon. And the neighbor's coming over for supper, so she wants us to look nice." The words ground out from between her teeth.

"Cheer up," Danny groused and he made his way to his bed and dumped the suitcase on top. "Your new boyfriend's not going to get abducted in the month you're gone." He dug through the clothes for a pair of pants that weren't wet.

"He's not my-" she broke off suddenly as her phone chirped, managing to get out the entire chorus of _I Can't Help Falling In Love With You_ once before the red-faced young woman dug the phone out of her bag and opened it. A smile was on her face and a happy, cheery note in her voice when she said, "Hey, Zach." A pause. "Yes, I'm here. Safe and sound on the beach. Yeah, I miss you already…"

Danny snorted and grabbed his clean pants. "Gonna be a long month if you're going to act like this the whole time," he told his sister as he walked by.

She glared and grabbed her shoe, tossing it at his head. Just getting the bathroom door closed in time, the shoe slammed against the wood and tumbled to the ground. "No, that was just my little brother. We have to share a room, you know. Yeah, I know, it stinks."

"It was 'good bonding time' a week ago when I was the one complaining!" Danny shouted through the door, only to have another thud – presumably a second thrown shoe – be his answer.

The wet pants were hung up on the shower curtain rod to dry and Danny hesitated by the backroom door. Jazz was still talking to her 'not-boyfriend' and had at least two more pairs of shoes within easy reach. A moment of contemplation had him unlocking the door and then phasing through the wall directly into the hallway, bypassing his sister completely.

Better safe than sorry.

He trampled down the stairs, pausing to glace through the window at the halfway point. The unconscious smile crept back onto his face at the sight of the billowing ocean. Idiotic sister or not, this was going to be a wonderful vacation.

"Danny! Jazz! Supper's on!" his father bellowed. "Get down here!"

"Jack!" his mother admonished a moment later, her voice no quieter than her husband's. "Keep it down, we have a guest!"

Danny jumped the last three steps, walking across the little living room and poking his head into the kitchen. The beach-themed room had a small kitchen with an old-looking table set up in the middle. The room smelled heavily of hamburgers and the last bits of smoke from the grill outside.

Before he could do more than step into the kitchen, his mother dropped a plate full of vegetables into his hands. "Danny, look who our neighbor is! Isn't that such a wonderful surprise?"

Blinking around the kitchen, Danny couldn't see anything other than the back of his father's orange 'vacation Hazmat suit' standing over by the table. "Um…"

Then his father moved.

"Mr. Lancer," Danny whispered, stunned. Halfway across the country? Danny's brain was frozen, trying to process the foreign idea that teachers actually went places that weren't dull and teacher-ish.

The man's smile was genuine as he met Danny's gaze, a bit of a chuckle leaking out of his chest. "I come here every summer – I've told you that at least a dozen times."

"Oh," Danny managed, still blinking blankly.

"And, while we're here, you can call me Will. But it's Mr. Lancer again when we get back to school."

Danny nodded, finally getting his feet to move. His father set down the steaming plate of freshly-grilled hamburgers as Danny maneuvered the plate of vegetables someplace far from his plate. He froze again – just for a moment – when he caught sight of Lancer out of the corner of his eye.

"I was just telling Lancer, here, about the study we're doing," his father said boisterously, grabbing for a bun and slathering it with every topping available. "The one about how sea salt affects ghosts."

"Oh yeah," Danny muttered, dropping into his own seat and tweaking a hamburger from the plate onto his own. "The whole sea salt equals no ghosts thing."

His mother piled a bunch of carrots onto Danny's plate, silencing his complaint with a look. "And Will was telling us about some of the local ghost stories. He said there's even a ghost-hunting _club_ in town! Can you believe how lucky that is? You might actually get to help us do some ghost hunting here after all!"

Danny's stomach tumbled to his shoes and his heart slowed almost to a stop.

No ghosts. Un-check.

No school. Un-check.

No responsibilities. Un-check.

One. Whole. Month.

_Damn it. _

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Uploaded March 20, 2011  
Gotta love knocking on wood!  
Thanks for reading!


	68. Tears from Heaven

_T__here be flooding in my town… Stupid river._

_Rated - quite strongly - 'D' for described disgusting destruction and death. (also known as 'M', but I think it should be 'D' honestly)  
_

_

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_

_**Tears from Heaven**__  
_A Danny Phantom Ficlet by Cori_  
_

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It took two days for the flood to slow. Greenish liquid – glowing and radioactive – was everywhere. The liquid part of the plasma ran like water between houses and through the streets. Some of it, now congealed and thick, clung to abandoned cars and lay itself in a coat of muck knee-deep throughout the town. And all of it _burned_.

Cars smoked as the acidic, endothermic matter sucked every available ohm of energy from the surrounding area, rotting away the metal and dissolving the vehicle. Homes and businesses teetered on lower floors that were little more than stilts ready to collapse. Towers of steel and electricity, symbols of mankind, lay crumpled and scattered.

And all over it all, an eerie green, poisonous cloud hung. It blocked the sun's light, sending the entire area into a creepy darkness lit only by the still-flowing plasma as it splashed helplessly against the disintegrating town.

A ghost town, littered with dead.

A passing flock of honking birds, too ingrained in their migration patterns to realize the danger, flew over the town. It took only a matter of minutes for the smoke to burn their feathers, blind them, and cauterize their lungs. The dying birds plunged into the caustic wasteland. Their bodies would be completely dissolved within the hour.

A teenager sat on top the clock tower, watching the small bodies drop into the muck with a blank look on his face. His eyes glowed the same intense color as the plasm below, his white hair seeming to shimmer iridescently in the ghostly light. One arm was hooked around a leg that was held close to his chest, the other was propped on his upturned knee, resting his chin after a long day of death.

_Crackle_.

With a tip of his head, the boy reached up and tapped the small earpiece. "What?" His voice was hollow and ringing – dead – and made a small puff of steam in the frigid air as he spoke.

_"You find anyone today?"_

"No." The green eyes closed, his body rocking slightly forwards and backwards a few times. An intense shudder racked his body and he let out a sharp breath. "There won't be anyone, not anymore."

"_Yeah, we got those readings on the air in downtown. How are you doing?"_

There was no answer, at least not from the lonely ghost surrounded by a town that had been destroyed by the very ectoplasm that he was made from. His face was blank, the acidic breeze brushing at his hair. Almost distantly, the foot that was dangling over the edge swung forwards and back, kicking at the vaguely-glowing ice cycles that had formed on the giant clock. One of the shards of ice broke free, tumbling through the air and splashing into the flowing plasma below.

_"We managed to remote-close the portal a few hours ago. It should stop more of the ectoplasm from coming through."_

"Yay," the young ghost whispered in a puff of warm air, pulling his leg closer to his chest. "How's he doing?"

There was silence, and then the faint crackle of static. _"The doctors say he should wake up soon. But he was right at the center of it when it started, kid. There's no telling how much brain damage there's been."_

A tear glistened on pale, green-tinted skin. Even as the boy reached up to angrily brush it away, another broke free and curled down his other cheek. "I know," he breathed, his voice barely loud enough to be heard over the breeze.

_"They want you back here."_

There was an audible _click_ as the teenager pushed the button to turn the earpiece off. He took it from his ear and dropped it into a pocket, returning to staring vacantly out over his destroyed town, covered in a haze of deadly fumes and littered with the slowly-dissolving bodies of thousands of humans. It was silent, except for the squishy sounds of goo slopping messily against desiccated buildings.

Somewhere in the distance, a bell chimed. The boy's head turned slowly, his eyes fixing on the strange, human-made sound. When he moved his body into a crouch, his clothes crackled from the thin layer of radioactive ice that had formed when he'd sat still. His feet perched on the icy ledge for a moment, then he was gone.

His body arrowed through the places where the birds dared not fly, the ectoplasm beneath him glowing like a greenish lava. It sent off huge billows of dense, freezing fog, the remains of the liquid when it finally pulled enough energy out of the universe to evaporate. The boy avoided the worst of the clouds, his fingers brushing over rooftops and his eyes trying to avoid the windows.

_Things_ were inside the windows. _Things_ that he had long since decided couldn't be thought about, much less looked at.

When his feet finally found a perch atop a falling-down gas station sign – one that only still stood because of the good graces of the roof it had chosen to collapse upon – he took a deep breath and began to look around for the source of the bell-like sound. Shells of cars, thickly coated in a layer of slimy, coagulated ectoplasm, littered the roads. One car had an ice-covered skeleton lying on its roof; no doubt the remains of some last-ditch effort of the driver to survive.

But if the ectoplasm didn't get you, and you managed to survive the freezing cold and the intense radiation, the air had long become too toxic for anything to survive. That is, unless you happened to be a ghost.

The boy pulled his eyes from the sprawled, disintegrating bones and continued his search. Nothing moved, except for faint swirls of poison carried on the wind. Running a hand through his hair, small bits of ice falling off in the process to clatter loudly against the sign's metal body, he sighed.

"Maybe I'm imagining things now," he whispered, a lifeless chuckle worming out of his lungs. "That'd be just perfect."

Then the sound came again. _Cling_.

His head jerked around and upwards, his radioactive eyes fixing on a window several stories up. A breath blew from his lips, showing up in the cold air in a burst of water vapor, and he rose into the air. "Hello?" he called, his voice ringing oddly in the dead town.

The darkness of a window came before him, and the teenager drifted closer to press his hands against the cold glass and peer inside. His eyes narrowed, gazing around, but a thin layer of glowing dust covered everything inside – including the several dead bodies in a huddle under some thick blankets.

Two were little kids.

_Crash_.

The window shattered.

Almost calmly, the boy picked little pieces of glass out of his fist, tossing the bloody shards into the goo five stories below. The sound echoed back from a hundred different places, crashing into his mind, the musical tinkle of the glass hitting the apartment floor dancing in his ears. Through it, he could hear the young family whispering in pain as they died.

Flexing his hand a few times, ignoring the way the slightly-glowing red blood trailed down his skin, the young ghost slipped up to the next window. He stopped, feet away from the pane of glass, and his shoulders heaved a few times. A hand reached out, as if to press against the window and look inside, but suddenly pulled back against his chest.

His head shook and he floated there, waiting, gazing at the blackened window. After a few minutes, he looked up and around, his ears intent for any sound. "Hello?" he called again, this time his voice softer – melancholy.

_Cling_.

Two windows over. His whole body shook once, violently, before the boy phased himself through the window and dropped onto the carpeting of the old apartment. A tiny cloud of acidic dust curled up around his feet, protesting the disturbance, and darkness clung to the corners and interior rooms of the building.

A hand moved, flicking the light switch. Nothing. "Is someone here?"

There was a sound of shuffling from one of the rooms. A soft sound of pain and protest. A faint _cling_ of metal-on-metal.

The teenaged spirit made his way through the apartment, reaching down and grabbing the small flashlight dangling from his belt. It had a slightly melted look, after two days in this toxic environment, but it turned on with a press of the button. The intensely white light made the boy hesitate and squint, his eyes watering.

Playing the light over the first room he encountered, he stared to look carefully for any sort of life. A plant was brown and dead on the kitchen table, a cat curled lifelessly in a corner. The second room held more of the same.

Suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and he froze, his eyes widening. "Where are you?" he asked, a bit quieter than necessary. "I'm here to help…"

A puff of poisonous air slipped against his neck and the boy whirled around, but there was nothing there. He took a small step backwards – towards the third and last door – and licked his lips. "Hello?"

The doorknob was freezing cold when he fumbled for it and took it in his hand. It turned slowly, creaking and protesting the motion, and he backed into the room. One last gaze was reserved for the empty hallway, then he turned around.

A bedroom. A body on the lone bed, skin dissolving and patchy from the acidic air, still attached to monitors that had gone dead several days before and the thick hose that ran to the mask to supply oxygen. A second body was on the ground beside the bed, eyes open and staring, the uniform of a nurse dissolving but still clearly visible.

It wasn't until the body on the bed _moved _that the body realized there was still someone alive in the city after all. The chest rose clumsily, blood seeping out of thick cracks in the skin. One of the body's hands moved ever so slightly, the white, frost-bitten fingers tapping a steel pen against the metal rails of the hospice bed.

In small movements, the boy crept to the old man's side. The man's face was damaged from the poisonous air, his eyes frozen shut by a thin layer of ice. Almost unconsciously, his mouth moved. Lines in his face gaped open and shut with the small motion, crying small rivulets of blood.

"Oh my God," the ghost whispered, tears in his eyes as he gazed down at the thin stubble of hair. The boy's hand reached forwards to touch the man's face, his fingers trembling badly at the thought of how much pain the man must be in.

_Cling_. _Cling_.

"I know," he said softly, pulling his hand back, unable to touch the badly-damaged skin. His hand pressed against his chest, his eyes closing for a moment and a shiver slipping through his body.

The old man's mouth moved again, the faintest pulse of words escaping the horribly destroyed body. "Please…"

Rocking back on his heels a few times, the boy forced his eyes open and walked around to the other side of the bed, crouching next to the oxygen tank and trying to not look anywhere else. His body was beginning to shake uncontrollably. It took a number of blinks before the small dial on the tank came into focus.

It was still nearly full. "What the?"

_Back off…_

The young ghost froze at the almost-heard sound, licking his lips and letting out a small breath. "Who's there?"

_He's mine…_ _ I take care of him…_

"He's hurting. I'm trying to help." Slowly, his hand still trembling, he reached forwards and set his hand on the hose connecting the old man from the oxygen tank.

Something grabbed his ankle. The boy's head spun around, his eyes widening at the sight of the rotting body of the nurse picking itself off the ground, one hand wrapped firmly around his leg. The nurse's eyes were empty and staring, her movements clumsy. _Stop…_

His hand yanked. The hose came off.

_NO!_ The ghost-possessed body lurched to its feet and took a stumbling step forwards, holding out frozen and broken hands as if to grab the hose and put it back in place.

The boy kicked out a foot and sent the nurse's body tumbling back to the ground. He got to his feet slowly, keeping an eye on the once-again still corpse. Behind the teenager, the old man on the bed made a few distressed sounds, his body twitching helplessly, before he relaxed with what sounded like a sigh of relief.

Unable to turn around, he wrapped his arms around his chest and shivered, his eyes blurring at tears starting the trail down his face again. He stood still, silent, the faint sound of a ticking clock elsewhere in the apartment counting down the seconds.

Then, into the never-ending glow of the destruction he flew. Hundreds – thousands – of spirits raised their hands to him as he passed overhead, screaming to be saved from the torture of this eternal Hell. From every corner of Amity Park they howled, shrieking with heartless voices for the one ghost with a soul.

Tears fell from heaven, burning with acid.

He raced the Devil itself away from this place – into the wind, away from the billowing cloud of poison that was slowly enshrouding the entire planet. Into the arms of the people he swore never to go to, to the one place that might save his entire species from utter destruction. To government agents that would no doubt run him through a gamut of tests – long, painful tests – with the vain hope of saving the world.

And towards his father, the Sole Survivor of Amity Park, the person who had started the whole damn flood in the first place.

* * *

Uploaded March 23, 2011  
Can you tell how I feel about water right now? :p  
Thanks for reading!


	69. Beautiful Day

_For AnneriaWings, who has been chatting with me all this time through my depression and has been one of the shining lights of my life. And for FINALLY introducing me to this 'I Am Legend' I have heard so much about.  
_

_Now. What are you doing reading this? Finish your FREAKING rough draft already, Anneria! _

_I Am Legend concept and excerpt copyright Warner Bros.  
'Beautiful Day' lyrics copyright U2  
Danny Phantom copyright Butch Hartman  
SPERP copyright Urban Dictionary (definition: to spiritually penetrate)_

_…I'm just borrowing from everybody today. :)_

_

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_

_**Beautiful Day**__  
_An Odd Little Danny Phantom-I Am Legend Crossover ficlet by Cori_  
_

* * *

_"In 2009, a deadly virus burned through our civilization, pushing human-kind to the edge of extinction.  
Dr. Robert Neville dedicated his life to the discovery of a cure and the restoration of humanity.  
On September 9th, 2012 at approximately 8:49 pm, he discovered that cure.  
And at 8:52, he gave his life to defend it. We are his legacy."_

-Spoken by Anna as she and her son finally escaped the reach of the zombie-like Infected and reached the safety of the Haven – a castle-like fortress in the countryside and one of the few places that humans can survive.

Unfortunately, not everyone was so lucky.

* * *

Danny's foot slipped on the broken asphalt and he clenched his teeth in pain. Stopping for a moment to rub his ankle, he glanced around at the darkening city. Three years ago, Amity Park had been a bustling metropolis – seventh on the human's list of the best places to live if you could survive the ghosts long enough and first on the ghost's list of best places to haunt if you could survive the local half-human long enough.

Today, though, Amity Park was a deserted wasteland. Cars were left abandoned and burned on the street. Buildings with broken windows and smoke damage were sad reminders of the riots and mobs that had run through the city when the Krippen virus had first hit. Even the thought of those terrifying months sent a shudder through the half-ghost's body.

"At least," Danny muttered, pushing himself back to his feet and then into the air, "it doesn't smell anymore."

It was one of the things Danny had hated the most at first: the place used to stink of death. The remains of the people that hadn't survived the infection, the bodies of the people killed by the Infected, and the skeletons of the people that were killed out of fear, madness, and random sociopathic tendencies... The smell had permeated the entire city for more than a year, drawing crowds of carrion birds and small rodents.

The rain had finally washed the scent away. The wind had helped blow it away. The bodies had long since rotted away.

And Danny had stayed.

Spreading his arms as he made it to the top of the buildings and soared into the empty sky, Danny closed his eyes and tried to enjoy the last of the sun's warmth. Soon it would set and the Infected would take over. Soon Danny would have to lose what little sense of normalcy he had left.

The horizon stained orange, then red, then streaks of darkest purple stared to crawl around on the scattered clouds. His supernatural eyes slowly opened to take in the sight and a sigh curled out from his ribs. "Oh it's a beautiful day," Danny sang softly, folding his arms around his chest, "don't let it get away…"

Just as the last speckles of daylight left the sky, Danny took off towards his home. Or what was left of his home, anyways.

_Things_ stared to move around in the growing darkness below his flying body. Muscular and lean, with no hair and patches of rash-like skin, the creatures picked their way through the destroyed town in search of something to eat. Danny ignored them.

He alighted on the roof of his house, momentarily falling into a crouch as the ground seemed to spin in crazy circles. It had been doing that a lot lately; too much time in ghost mode. "You love this town," he muttered, "even if that doesn't ring true. You've been all over, and it's been all over you…"

When the world settled around him, Danny got to his feet and ran a hand over his bald head. He could still feel the ghostly whispers of hair that wanted to be there. Hair that Danny had long since shaved off to stop it from falling out. Then he pushed open the attic door and slipped into the Ops Center.

At least, it used to be the Ops Center. Now it was the Sole Place Even Remotely Possible in Amity Park to Live So One Won't Get Eaten. Or, "SPERP APL SWOGE", as Danny had spray-painted boldly on the side of the building in Fenton-orange. He'd stopped caring that it made no sense a while ago. Now it was home. And shortened to SPERP, to save time.

A kick with his duct-taped boot got the generator rumbling again, the lights coming on with the sleepy flicker. "You're out of luck, and the reason that you had to care," Danny hummed, taking off the old shoes and tossing them into the corner along with the tattered remains of his jacket. "The traffic is stuck and you're not moving anywhere…"

_God_, he hated that song. It was too bad it had been the last song the radio had played before everything had gone silent. Now, here he was, all alone, with the world's most ironic song ever running circles through his mind for –apparently – the rest of time. _Beautiful Day_? The past year had been filled with anything but beautiful days.

Padding quietly across the rug-strewn floor of SPERP, Danny paused to check the door that led down into his parents' house. Thick boards and screws surrounded the metal, the combination lock smashed and burned beyond recognition. It hadn't been touched. "Excellent," he whispered, then stood up and looked around.

There was only one unbroken mirror left in SPERP. His glowing eyes caught in it for a moment, his gaze pausing on the bald head, skinny sunken cheeks, and the strange rash that had developed by his right ear. He scratched at it distantly, feeling small flakes of skin cascade to the floor, and turned away.

There was no need to stare for long. He'd done that plenty in the past few months.

"You thought you'd found a friend to take you out of this place…" Danny breathed, stopping in front of a door. _The_ door. Beyond it was… "Someone you could lend a hand in return for grace…"

His hand snuck out to touch the doorknob, but Danny jerked his hand back before he made contact. But whatever was hidden beyond the door seemed to sense his presence. A piercing shriek filled the air, chains rattled desperately, and there was the distinct sound of fingernails scraping on metal.

He backed away from the door, waiting for the sounds to stop. When silence once again labored through the small room – with the exception of the gasping groans from the old generator – Danny nodded his head once.

"Supper?" he whispered to no one in particular. Getting no answer, Danny shrugged and moved over to the small kitchen he'd set up. On top the microwave sat a Thermos, battered and rusted and dusty from lack of use. No true ghost would be stupid enough to visit Amity Park – not anymore. "Hey!" he said, jabbing the Thermos with his finger. It swayed a bit before settling. "I was talking to you, ghost."

Whatever ghost was unfortunate enough to be trapped in that Thermos didn't see fit to respond.

Danny probably wouldn't have listened anyways. He grabbed one of the label-less cans from the top of the pyramid of silver cans and held it over a bowl, neatly phasing the metal out of existence. "And the prize tonight is…"

Sliced pears cascaded into the bowl. "Excellent. Pears."

Outside, something screamed – a familiar sound that cut straight through Danny's soul. Danny looked up from his bowl, his body tensing, his eyes seeming to glaze over. A sound started to whisper in his throat. It was the same sort of shrieking sound that had resounded out in the city.

He slammed his eyes shut and shook his head, dropping the bowl of pears to the ground. "No," he hissed. "No."

Whatever was hidden behind the closed door moved around, rattling the metal chains restlessly.

"Touch me," Danny sang, dropping into a crouch and pressing the heels of his hands desperately against his ears, rocking forwards and back. "Take me to that other place. Reach me, I know I'm not a hopeless case…"

Slowly, ever so slowly, Danny slowed his rocking and settled his breathing. "It was a beautiful day, don't let it get away. Beautiful day…" Finally, he opened his eyes, wishing he was gazing at the glowing sunlight instead of the harshly-lit SPERP.

Shaking hands hesitantly scooped up the fallen pear slices. A rag took care of the spilled juice, left on the ground in a huddled mess of cloth to clean up later. He sank onto the old couch and stared down at the pear slices in his bowl.

He wasn't hungry.

After a long few minutes he stood back up, walking over to the door and set down the uneaten pears. His fingers curled around the cold doorknob "Val?" he said, his voice raspy as he pushed open the door. "I brought you supper."

Val's skin was pale and stretched, the ragged remains of her red huntress outfit barely covering her body. The Infected screeched at the light that cascaded into the room and huddled in the corner. She curled her gnarled arms over her light-sensitive eyes, scratching at her hairless scalp.

"Come on, talk to me," Danny pleaded, trying to ignore the way his stomach was yanking on him. His mouth was watering at the sight of the vampiric female, a horrifying glaze starting to cover his eyes. "I know you're still there. You're too strong-"

He cut off as the creature suddenly leaped towards him. Danny took a startled step backwards before he remembered she couldn't touch him. When Val hit the end of the chains with a sharp and abrupt halt, the gurgling feeling in Danny's stomach crested over the barriers he'd erected and flooded through his body.

He snarled, falling into a crouch and glaring at the girl. When she shrieked in defiance, Danny took a bold step forwards and matched her sound, overriding it and sending it echoing through the thick autumn air outside the safety of SPERP.

His hand leapt out, almost of its own accord, and slammed creature that used to be Valerie Grey against the wall. Danny stepped forwards, holding her furiously, every motion of his body meant to demonstrate one fact: I am the leader and I will kill you if you don't submit to me now.

The feeling in Danny's stomach grew, tugging at tendrils of his ghost side, trying to pry them lose from his body. Danny felt it and a small part of his brain screamed in terror at the thought of losing his ghost mode, at the thought of what would happen if he went full human while infected…

But the Danny that was in control right then easily ignored the small, terrified part of his own brain. He snarled, his face inches from Val's.

She understood. With only a few more defiant snorts, Val's body went limp, her eyes drifting towards the ground.

Danny let her go, turning and stalking back out the door. He only barely remembered to push the bowl of pears into the room before slamming the door shut and collapsing to the floor. A couple of desperate snarls curled from his chest as he fought to regain control of his mind from the virus. "Oil…" he whispered. "Bird… leaf… flood… colors…"

Then the song took back over his mind, twisting out the oddly soothing melody and chasing away the deranged thoughts of the infected half of his body. "What you don't have you don't need it now… was a beautiful day…"

He let out a long, slow breath, his glowing eyes closing and his body slipping to the floor. The metal was cold under his head, the rest of him sprawled onto some of the warmer rugs. His fingers unhurriedly relaxed from their clenched fists.

He supposed he was sleeping. In slow, leisurely movements, his chest rose and fell, his heart rate slowing down to something near normal. Images of his friends and family – gone – flashed before his mind's eye.

His father, dying from the infection.

His mother, lying in a bloody pile after a mob attack.

Tucker, his face pale with sweat just before the virus killed him.

Jazz, her voice soft and quiet on the call from college in the hours before she'd fall asleep and never wake up again.

Sam…

Sam.

Danny's eyes cracked open again. "You're in the mud in the maze of her imagination…"

Sam.

He didn't often journey out into the town after dark, after the Infected took over. The urge to drop his ghost side and join them was just too strong. Better to stay here, stay a ghost in order to stay human, keep trying to find a cure…

That didn't stop him tonight. He slowly got to his feet, moving tiredly over to where his boots had been thrown, his back protesting the movement. "Five minutes," he whispered. "Five minutes, that's it, then I'll come back and go to sleep."

The boots went on easily, the torn shoelaces barely worth tying anymore. He went through the motions more as a remembered routine than any sort of practical use, grabbing his jacket on the way out.

He didn't make the mistake of opening his door again. The Infected waited outside his door, hoping to get inside. Instead, Danny simply phased through the roof and vanished into the night sky, his eyes glowing like stars against the blackness.

The wind pushed against his eyes, streaming around his body in a warm, gentle way. It was calling to the leaves to change color, to start to fall, to begin going to sleep to wait for the new year. It called to Danny as well – to sleep, to wait, to go home…

Shaking his head, Danny ignored the wind. "Five minutes, that's all I want. Just once more…"

Danny knew exactly where to look for her. She stayed in the same place each day, perhaps drawn there by some forgotten memory, and seemed to refuse to want to leave it at night. It made her easy to find – not that he'd ever lose her.

The darkened billboard of the movie theater loomed large in the night. It still proclaimed the last movie that had come to the town over a year ago, most of the letters missing but Danny's mind easily filling them in. But Danny didn't pause to read it. He slipped straight through the wall and sat – upside down – on the ceiling of theater three.

"The heart is a bloom," he whispered, knowing the sound would carry in the empty place and gazing 'up' at the floor. "Shoots up through the stony ground."

Movement. A lithe shadow untangling itself from the rest of the gloom and looking upwards at the glow of his body. Amethyst, virus-glazed eyes stared up at him.

"There's no room," Danny continued, "no space to rent in this town."

He imagined that he saw the creature smile up at him. When she made a soft, welcoming whistle, Danny felt it slam straight into his gut. The virus inside of him reached out its claws and sunk them into his stomach painfully. "Hey, Sam," he breathed, pushing the monster out of his mind. "How you doing?"

The shadow moved back and forth a few times, seemingly distressed at the loss of the song.

"What you don't have you don't need it now…" Danny sang softly, watching her calm down.

…he could feel her breath as he leaned forwards, in that very theater, under the flickering lights of some stupid horror movie, and pressed his lips to hers for the first time…

"What you don't know you can feel it somehow…"

…he could feel the coldness as it seeped into her fingers, the virus taking over her system and turning her into a creature he'd sworn to fight…

"What you don't have you don't need it now…"

…he could feel the press of his lips against hers, unknowing that he was kissing the virus right off her infected lips…

"Don't need it now…"

…he could feel the pounding of his heart, demanding he give up this crazy attempt at remaining human in a world filled with the Infected, give up and join one the person that still loved him…

"Was a beautiful day…"

He woke up the next morning, a bit surprised to find himself still a ghost, curled up on the floor of the SPERP, tears long since dried on his cheeks. Sunlight leaked through the small gaps in the metal shutters over the windows, spilling onto his face. He squinted and held up a hand, running his tongue over his grimy-feeling teeth.

The sunlight drove the virus deeper into his body, leaving him feeling achy and dizzy. With a groan, he got to his feet, stumbled over to the sink, and splashed cold water onto his face. His elbows rested on the edge of the sink, his forehead coming down to rest on his wrists, and he rested there for a moment.

One hand moved slowly, reaching into his shirt to clench the small engagement ring he'd strung onto a string around his neck. It was a promise, meant to be fulfilled.

Not by a monster. Not by a ghost. By _him._

It was another day to try to save his Sam from the Infected.

Another _beautiful day_.

* * *

Uploaded March 29, 2011  
I'm all vampified... must go watch Zombieland now...  
Thanks for reading!


	70. Exist

_News:_

_I have been so sick the past five months that I have officially lost 27 pounds, dropping me from a size 10 to a size 6. I am now under warning that if I lose any more weight, I'll have to come off the medication that is slowly making me better. Stay tuned for further health updates._

_Further health update: I fell asleep outside yesterday in the sun. I am BURNED. Ouch! I am also just getting over a week-long, rather horrible bout of flu. Good thing, too, because I'm out of sick days. :)  
_

_I had a short story take 4th place in a contest! Not only did I win $50, I got my story hand-edited by a New York Times Best-Selling author! On top of that, the story has been accepted to be PUBLISHED! Comes out in September in a collection of stories called 'The Talking Stick'._

_Also, I have been accepted to be published in a collaboration of artists and authors from around my state in a coffee-table book called 20x20. Twenty artists created pictures and then twenty authors were chose to receive a picture and write a story inspired by that picture. This book is due out in July._

_So, sorry I haven't been updating much, but my life has been (as you can see) rather interesting lately. Will continue to update when I can._

_Unedited flabble to follow.  
_

* * *

**Exist**  
A Danny Phantom FanDrabble by Cori

* * *

"So, Maddie and Jack," the man said, settling into his overly large chair. He drummed chewed-on fingernails against the armrests. "Tell me your story."

The two other adults in the room - one a woman in blue and another a man in garish orange - glanced at each other. Nervousness was written on their faces, pain and sorrow in their eyes.

"Um…" Jack Fenton started. "Danny-"

"Eh," the man grunted, interrupting the as-yet-unstarted story. "Don't tell me the story. Tell me your story. In the order you found out about things. No 20/20 hindsight. No jumping to conclusions before you did. No 'I-shouldda-known's. Your story."

Maddie stared down at her hands for a second, then sighed. "We're-"

"Better," the man said, smiling and picking up the small recorder to make sure it was on 'play'.

Maddie blinked and looked over at her husband. "We're ghost hunters, by trade. We've been… interested… in ghosts for decades. But we didn't get the finances in order and all the paperwork signed until about ten years ago. That was when FentonWorks was born." A small smile slid onto her face at those words, but it quickly vanished again.

"We weren't going to be TV-style ghost hunters," Jack took over, his voice oddly soft, "we weren't going out there to scare people or entertain the masses. We were out to prove that ghosts really existed."

"For years we were just ghost hunters. Then, about four years ago, Jack got the idea of how to prove that ghosts exist. Build a door that leads us to their plane of existence and capture one." Maddie shrugged and took a deep breath. "We worked on it for years. Two years ago we finally got it going. Well, kind of."

"Kind of?" the man asked, tipping his head to the side and scratching at the collar of his suit.

Maddie nodded slowly, tears building in her eyes and then slipping down her face.

Jack spoke up. "We didn't get it working. Danny… did something. It turned on and shocked him…" He trailed off.

When the silence stretched on for too long, the man in the suit leaned forwards again. He set his elbows on his knees and put a careful smile on his face. "What happened next?"

"N-nothing," Jack said, frustrated. "Nothing happened. He was out of school for a few days due to a burn on his hand and not feeling quite right. But then everything was just… normal. At least for a while."

"Something happened to take your mind off of Danny, didn't it," the man said, not quite a question.

"Ghosts started showing up." Maddie's voice was whisper-soft. "We got distracted. We were going to catch one, prove our theories to the world, be famous, just like we'd always planned… And we paid no attention when it really mattered."

The sound of fingernails drumming on an armrest filled the silent room. The man asked another question. "When'd you meet Phantom?"

Maddie bit her lip for a moment, closing her eyes. "Third ghost we tracked down, some sort of meat… thing." Her eyes squeezed shut tightly, her arms creeping around her stomach and pressing tightly. "We were trying to catch it, to study it… and that's when Phantom showed up for the first time. We didn't know his name, or where he was from, or what he was doing. But he chased off the ghost we were trying to catch."

"That's not what we thought at the time," Jack said. "He stole our ghost, helped it escape, and got the entire area covered in rotting meat in the process. He was probably helping the meat-ghost. To us - well, to anyone - he was a menace. A poltergeist."

"So you tried to catch him," the man muttered, nodding.

"Who wasn't?" Jack whispered. "He had a bounty on his head for awhile, remember."

"That kind of thing kept happening," Maddie said, her arms still wrapped tightly around herself, but her eyes open and blank. "We'd… ignore… what he was really doing and interpret his actions in a bad light. No matter what we were told or what we actually witnessed. We refused to change our initial assessment of him: a poltergeist. Besides, we'd never met a ghost who wasn't evil."

"Why didn't you close the portal then? Why leave it open if the ghosts were destroying things?"

Jack scowled. "It wouldn't have helped. By opening the portal, we created a sort of 'weakness' in the stuff between the ghost realm and ours. Closing the actual portal wouldn't have stopped the weak spot… any ghost strong enough to manifest in our world and actually cause damage wouldn't have had any issues getting through the weak spot - portal open or otherwise. Having the portal active, being able to control the flow of energy from one realm to the other, that was actually the safest way to deal with it."

"But ghosts still got through." The man smiled a bit, arching an eyebrow.

"Which is why we built the weapons." Maddie blinked, but continued to stare at the wall. "We thought… well… Phantom actually kind of gave us the idea. If we couldn't catch the ghosts, we might be able to chase them off. We opened the portal, we were going to deal with the consequences of it."

Playing with one of the buttons on his suit, the man surveyed the two adults, his eyes flicked from one sorrow-filled face to the other. "When did Danny start having problems?"

"Immediately, now that I know what to look for," Maddie said. "But it took us months to notice. Skipping school, grades dropping, attitude towards everything going sour… It just kept getting worse and worse as time went on."

"Drugs, gangs, drinking, girlfriends," Jack muttered. "We thought of everything and nothing seemed to fit."

Maddie brought a hand up to her face, pressing a hand to her eyes. "And all that time…" The rest of her words were choked off by the sobs that were causing her body to shake. Jack leaned over and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to him.

"Please," Jack said, looking at the man in the suit with wide eyes. "Please. We've answered your questions."

"Just a few more," the man replied. "Explain yesterday."

Jack sighed loudly. "It was a normal day. Danny overslept, I kicked him out of bed, he raced off to school without breakfast. A couple hours later, the school calls, says Danny never showed up." Jack's voice cracks on those words. "At the same time, we get a call about a ghost." Jack rocked his wife back and forth a few times, squeezing her arm. "Danny skipped school a lot, so we really didn't think much of it. Mads went off to search for him, I went to deal with the ghost."

"Go on," the man prompted when Jack didn't speak again, resting his chin on Maddie's head.

Jack blinked, almost like he was startled that he wasn't talking. "I found two ghosts, or at least that's what I thought. The Wisconsin Ghost, with Phantom at his feet. I wasn't paying that much attention at the time, I really didn't notice that Phantom was covered with blood and that he seemed to be struggling to breathe."

"Didn't catch your attention? A ghost with blood and breathing?"

"It didn't," Jack muttered. "I snuck up on the two ghosts, thinking I could get a jump on them, maybe catch both at once. I got close enough to hear what they were saying. Or, what the Wisconsin Ghost was saying."

The man leaned forwards, weaving his fingers together. "And that was?"

"Something about Phantom being his slave. Not talking back to him, obeying him, knocking off the hero nonsense, things like that." Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath, seeming to steady himself to continue. "Phantom said something, probably a retort or sarcastic remark, and the Wisconsin Ghost pretty much went nuts. Blood…" Tears were leaking from Jack's eyes by this point. His voice trailed off, unable to continue.

Into the silence, the man in the suit sighed. "That's when you realized Phantom and your son were one and the same? When he started to lose consciousness?" He didn't even wait for the Fentons to acknowledge his questions before barreling into the next demand. "Tell me about the gun."

When there was no reply, the man's voice hardened. "I know this is difficult for you, but I need to know. You were there, Jack. You're the only person that can tell me what happened. The gun."

"I…" Jack said, his voice cracking and breaking so badly his words were hard to make out, "I stepped forwards and shouted, they saw me. Danny looked… tortured. Terrified. In tons of pain. The Wisconsin Ghost laughed." He went quiet, his shoulders shaking as he tried to continue the story. "He said he hated me. He'd finally be able to take care of me. He… pulled out the gun."

"And…?"

"Da-" Jack's voice stopped and he had to clear his throat, his eyes closed and his arms wrapped tightly around his wife, "D-Danny was… broken. He could barely move. But he somehow got his hands on the gun."

Apparently taking pity on Jack, the man in the suit shook his head and sighed. "Danny shot the Wisconsin Ghost in the head. Who - rather to your amazement - turned into your best friend, Vlad Masters when he hit the ground dead. True?"

Jack nodded tightly.

"And then they ended up here," the man said softly, his eyes narrowing in thought. "Interesting."

Maddie looked up, her eyes red from the tears, her body tight. "You promised."

"I promised?" the man asked, arching an eyebrow. "What exactly did I promise?"

"My son. You said you'd let me see my son." Maddie pushed out from under her husband's arm and stood up, attempting to loom over the seated man. "We told you, now let us pass."

The man nodded slowly. "I may have promised that. Only there's a problem."

Both the Fentons tensed, the sorrow on their faces freezing in place.

"Your story, while most technically true, makes no logical sense," the man said, picking up the recorder, shutting it off, and sticking it into his pocket. He stood and stretched. "Nobody's going to buy it and, now that we've been through your place and Master's with a fine-toothed comb you've really got no proof. You'll be written off as crazies before the six o'clock news"

"What does that mean?" Maddie whispered.

"I'm denying your request. Officially, I deny that the boy known as Phantom is here at all. I furthermore refuse to comment on his current condition, up to and including whether or not the boy is still alive." The man crossed the room, putting his hand on the door knob.

"You-" Maddie seethed.

Jack stood up, his bulk towering over his wife's. "That's my son you're talking about!"

The man nodded. "So you say. Go home. Your son doesn't exist anymore." The door opened, then closed, leaving two blank-faced adults standing in a small room.

* * *

May 19, 2011  
Eh. Whatever.  
Thanks for reading. ;)


	71. Orika

Trying to update Plunge, but some fiance of mine has turned on a distracting TV show and I can't... ifocus/i... enough to read it over one last time. ;)

So... you get random dA drabbles instead!

* * *

**Orika**  
A Danny Phantom FanFic by Cordria

* * *

The creature's name was Orika. It was barely alive as it slimed its way across the floor. The largest of its misshapen heads picked off the ground, leaving a trail of goo dribbling off its skin and more than a little gravel stuck to its face. One eye opened and spun dizzily, as if searching for something.

A hand reached forwards, broken claws digging into the dirt and pulling the creature a few feet farther along its trail. Its tail and its wings, limp and oozing blood, trailed through the ooze the creature left behind. The mouth opened, toothless maw gaping for breath. It burbled and bubbled horribly in its throat.

"Hooooo-reeeeeeee-kaaaaaaaah," it moaned, then collapsed into a fit of something that sounded vaguely of coughing. All three of its heads convulsed as the strange noises tore from its through.

It barely noticed when two feet crunched in the dirt nearby and came to a stop. One eye rolled in the shoe's direction, the creature opening and closing its mouth soundless a few times. There was a slight crackle in the bushes, and then the sharp jab of a stick being poked into its side.

Blood oozed through its thin skin, trailing warmly down its side. "Hoooooo-reeeeee...," it complained, kicking out with a back foot in a vain attempt to get away from the pain.

"Hey!" a sharp voice called, echoing through the creature's six ears in various tones. "Guys! Come look at this."

It snarled in its toothless way, shuddering in pain from the way the voice grated in its mind. "Kaaaaaaaa," it hissed, reaching out a trembling arm to pull itself forwards a few more feet.

"Dude," a new voice said, "freaky."

The sound of more shoes slid into the creature's ears and it retracted all its arms and legs, pulling itself into a limp ball and putting one oozing, broken hand over its head. _Hide_its instincts screamed. But it was too hurt and shattered to do anything more.

Something warm and solid pressed against its main head, running over its thin skull and through the random strands of black hair that were sticking to its oozing skin. "Don't touch it!" someone yelped and the hand flinched away, then came back.

"Its scared." This voice was warm and open and it slid through the creature's ears like butter. The fingers continued to caress its head, tickling the sensitive spot on the base of its skull. "Dash! Don't."

The creature's one working eye swirled around in panic, catching sight of the bottom of a shoe. The shoe slowly set back down on the dirt and the person attached to it scowled. "What?"

"Hooooooo..." the creature moaned.

"It's a monster," the voice attached to the shoe - Dash? - grumbled. "Let's kill it and call the cops before it hurts someone."

"It's not going to hurt someone," the buttery voice said, continuing the soft rubbing. The creature relaxed slightly and moved its hand off its face, gazing around. "It can barely move."

The people were... familiar? There was a tickling in the back of its mind, some sort of a faint memory, as it stared up at the blurry faces. But that didn't make sense. It had never met these people before. It had only met one person before. Or maybe two, but the second had been so fast...

Well, these people weren't going to hurt it, that much was sure. The one with the voice of butter would protect it.

_Run. Get away. NOOO!_

Released from the fear, it was flooded by the one thing it remembered. Run. Get away. Ignoring the people around it, the creature stretched forward a hand and pulled itself farther along the woods. The soft fingers on its skull followed.

"Where's it going?" one of the voices asked. "Think we should follow it, Kwan?"

"Nah," the Dash voice interrupted with a snort. "Let's just call the cops or something and go find something better to do."

"What do you think it is?"

The fingers slid down its neck and along its spine with a slick, slurping sound. When they touched the long, open wounds on its back, the creature hissed in pain and jerked forwards a few feet.

"Look at these," the soft voice whispered. "What happened to you?"

"Who cares?" the Dash scoffed. "It's probably some kind of ghost or something. Let's just go."

The fingers vanished, the creature moaning softly at the lack of contact. The person attached to the soft fingers moved around and crouched in front of the monster. One dizzy eye stared into a face that was dazzlingly familiar. The person's eyes narrowed, then widened in surprise. "Paulina, come here." It was the buttery voice.

Another face, this one twisted in disgust and as far away as possible, appeared. "What?"

"It looks familiar..." the buttery voice said softly. "Don't you think?"

"I don't think so," the Paulina hissed, standing up and stalking away. "Let's call someone and get out of here."

_Kwan..._ A faint memory tingled as the group clustered off to the side, chattering softly to themselves. Words curled in the creature's mind, but it wasn't able to form them with its lips. _Help me..._

Instead of talking, it whimpered and struggling to get farther away from... whatever it was running away from. Leaves and broken debris from the trees and bushes stuck to the slime oozing off its body and scratched at its thin skin, drawing blood.

Suddenly, there was someone else in the clearing. It knew the person instantly, before anyone else reacted to the presence. It feared the glowing red eyes and the billowing black hair. Its mind screamed in panic when a cold, clawed hand reached out and wrapped around its wrist.

"How dare you?" a voice tinged with Hell-fire snarled. "I told you to stay."

"Reeeeeeekaaaaa!" the creature screeched, desperate to catch the attention of the people that had been in the clearing, the ones from those faint memories. But the Hell-fire person had already drug the creature out of phase. One of the teenagers in the clearing looked up with a wrinkled forehead, then yelled out something incomprehensible.

Even as the Hell-fire person pulled and yanked the creature from the trees, the people were searching for it. One of them walked right through the monster's limp wings, unhearing, unknowing, and unseeing of what was going on.

The creature raised its slimy, broken claws and scratched towards the Hell-fire person. All it got for the effort was a sharp rap on one of its lesser heads, shattering what remained of its thin skull and bruising the half-formed brain. The main head screamed in pain before it was shaken painfully and told to shut up.

"Vla..."

The Hell-fire person froze, his cold fingers tightening enough to snap the fragile bones of the creature's arm. "Shit," the man hissed. "Not now."

The creature forced its eye open and rolled it dizzily around, searching for the source of the man's anger. It ended up staring at yet another teenager, this one with glowing white hair and seething green eyes. The teenager was staring at them blankly, almost in fear. "What...?"

Memory stirred again, painfully this time. _Phantom..._ the memory whispered, causing the creature to reach out a hand towards the young ghost. _Help..._

"Go away, Badger, and you'll keep your life," the Hell-fire man snapped. "I'm not in the mood today."

The green eyes blinked a number of times, then flickered from the creature to the Hell-fire man and back. "Vlad. What the Hell is that?"

"None of your business," the man snarled, clenching his fist tighter and causing the creature's arm to scream in agony. "Go away, Daniel."

The boy narrowed his eyes and moved forwards a few steps, completely ignoring the orders of the Hell-fire man. "Hey... Is that..."

The creature's arm was jerked backwards, causing it to flip over. Blood-tinted slime oozed and gushed when it slammed into the ground. The pain caused by the movement was so great that it couldn't see or hear for a few moments.

When the world cleared, it realized the hand that had been holding it was gone and there was the sound of a furious fight going on. The noise of flesh hitting flesh was an unmistakable sound. It managed to open a watering eye in time to see the Hell-fire man with the red eyes get slammed into a tree. The teenager snarled, "Explain."

"It's just an experiment," Vlad spat. "None of your concern."

"I have a feeling it is," the green-eyed teen answered. "How'd you do it?"

The man broke away and the fists started to fly again. The creature curled up into a painful ball, sobbing in pain and terror, and closed its eyes. Lost in its own mind, the creature was unaware of the passing of time.

When a hand pressed against its head, the creature trembled in fear. But the hand did nothing but slowly stroke, a voice whispering softly. "You're the experiment Vlad's been working on, aren't you? I tried to find out what he was so interested in a while ago, and I've been looking for you since you disappeared two weeks ago. I'm sorry I didn't find you earlier - I thought you'd run away... not... this..."

An eye opened. The Hell-fire man was lying on the ground not far away, blood oozing from his nose and his eyes closed in unconsciousness.

"I'm really sorry," the teen whispered again. "You have no idea how sorry."

The eye rolled from the Hell-fire man to the teenager, watching the tears slipping down his face. It struggled to keep breathing through the pain, feeling a bit dizzy with how much blood it had lost. Its heart beat loudly in its ears.

"I'll call my parents, okay?" he said softly, running a hand gently over its largest head. "And I'll call yours. They've been so worried..."

_Parents?_ A memory whispered. Blackness curled around the corners of its vision. _I remember parents..._

"Just hold on," the teen breathed, pulling out a small phone and fumbling with his slimy hands. "Hold on, Star."

* * *

Updated 9/8/2011  
Because I am distracted by TV  
Thanks for reading!


	72. The Daughter

More dA drabbles coming your way.

**Warning: mild sexual illusions**

* * *

**The Daughter**  
A Danny Phantom FanFic by Cordria

* * *

She was quite the piece of work. Her skin-tight mini skirt came up a little too high and her strapless shirt started a little too low, but she had the perfect body for it: large and bulbous and overflowing, with a measure of wrinkles and stretch marks here and there for emphasis. Pale skin, frizzy hair that was bleached to almost white, and clothes that screamed neon, she caught the attention of everyone that passed by.

...not in a good way.

As she got off the bus in her father's town, there were the expected whispers, the quiet chuckling, and the not-so-discrete finger pointing that seemed to follow her everywhere. She responded by throwing her shoulders back and her *eh-hem* ample chest forwards. Her walk took on more of a strut that made her hip sway and the super-sized muffin top to jiggle. It didn't bother her, at least that's what she told herself.

Besides, she wasn't here to win friends. She wasn't here to impress and to blend in, or even to make a statement. She was here to slam a fist into her dead-beat father's gut, knee him where it hurts until the family jewels were tucked back where they came from, and shave his head of that fine head of hair he always took the time to display. There was even a brand-new razor in her duffel bag for the occasion.

Stopping near the side of the bus, she waited for the driver to open the compartment and remove her bag. She hadn't known how long she'd be in this back-water town, but she was prepared for anything. A full week's worth of clothes were stashed neatly in the bag - each outfit slimmer and more revealing than the last. She had taken _some_consideration into the fact that children might be on the bus, after all.

The handle clicked as it extended, the wheels rattling slightly as the hit the pavement and were pulled towards her. "Here you go... ma'am," the bus driver said, his eyes barely making it to her neck.

"Thanks!" she said cheerily, leaning forwards (to show more cleavage) as she took the handle from him. "You're a lifesaver. So strong and thoughtful!"

Her gushing had the proper effect. The bus driver flushed and wrung his hands together, staring. Suddenly he seemed to remember where he was and his eyes jerked up to her face. "H-have a good day," he stuttered as he hurried back to the bus, completely forgetting to harass his passenger for a rather larger than necessary tip.

The bus vanished off up the highway in a cloud of dust and gas and she took a moment to rearrange herself before turning to the rest of the station. A few buses sat here and there, a handful of taxis idled in disarray, and even a horse and carriage (a _horse_ and freaking _carriage_!) were parked alongside the road. It was like something out of a child's nursery, the pieces scattered in seemingly random patterns.

"It'd have to be here, wouldn't it?" she sighed, closing her blue eyes for a second and slipping a hand through her impossibly messy white hair. "You couldn't choose to live in a normal town?"

A quick check of her watch told her she was right on time. She'd planned on staying with some friends of her father, two wonderfully chatty people who'd even been nice enough to invite her father over for cookies for the afternoon. Of course, how they'd react once she pounded fifteen years of disapproval and abandonment issues into his body was another story.

"Taxi!" she called, holding up a hand. The skin under her arm jiggled and swayed with each twitch of her hand. A few of the taxi drivers looked up and immediately looked away, finding something incredibly interesting with the ground. One old, grimy geezer looked her over with an oily look in his eye, getting to his feet. She glared at him until he sneered and settled back down, rearranging himself obscenely.

She chose the last taxi driver in line, one that was middle aged and half asleep, the only thing holding his cigarette to his lip being a line of drool. Her body wiggled its way up to his taxi, standing before him in her screaming clothes until he blinked and focused on her, one eyebrow raising in what had to be shear disbelief. "Hey."

"I need a ride," she said simply, clicking the handle of her bag down - bending over and no doubt showing a bit too much skin. When she straightened, she was pleasantly impressed to see one eyebrow still raised, his eyes easily focus on her face rather than on something(s) else.

"Yup, figured," he said with a sigh, stretching and opening the passenger door. "Hop in. I'll throw your bag into the trunk."

Her impressed mindset dripped slightly when he turned out to not be exaggerating. But the trunk closed with a sharp click and he settled into the seat and they were off. "Where to?" he asked as he pulled up to the light, ready to get onto the freeway.

"Here," she replied, handing him the business card of her father's friends.

The driver eyed it, then snorted out a laugh. Quite a reaction to someone who'd only arched an eyebrow at her choice of clothing. "Ooookay," he drawled, putting on his blinker and taking a left.

The ride was shorter than expected. The driver kept his mouth closed, his eyes on the road, and responded to any questions in grunts or one syllable words. It was only a matter of ten minutes before he pulled to a stop outside of one of the strangest homes she'd ever seen. "This is it?" she asked hesitantly, hoping against hope.

"813 Chamber Road," he answered, turning around and grinning at her. "No mistaking _this_house. We use it for directions around here; easier to find than Tallmart."

"Excellent." She stared at it in disbelief a long moment before unbuckling her seat belt. A twenty disappeared into the driver's hand with a murmur about keeping the change. Then another twenty vanished with a promise that the cab would stick around for about twenty minutes just to make sure her appearance would be a welcome one and she wouldn't require a ride back to the station.

Her bag clicked and rattled, settling down next to her on the sidewalk. Sharp blue eyes scanned the brick facade, eyed the motley collection of wires escaping windows and small holes, and rested for a moment on a neon sign _almost_more garish than the clothes she was wearing. She contemplated changing, just so that she'd stand out more, but decided to just get it over with.

Heels clacked on the short walk up to the house, the wheels of her suitcase rattling along behind. Two steps led her to the front door. She straightened her skirt and shirt, ran a hand through her white hair, and pressed the doorbell. Someone unsurprisingly, instead of the typical ringing noise, there was a strange ghostly wail. A shake of her head was her response.

The door jerked open and a short teenager - not much younger than she was - stood in the doorway. His black hair was messy, his blue eyes filled with storm clouds. But when he saw her he flinched slightly, standing up straighter and actually fixing his eyes on her. "Hello. Can I help you?"

She eyed him a long second, surprised by the static that surrounded him. It hummed in her ears and crackled in the corners of her eye. He actually looked away, biting his lower lip, before she remembered to respond. "My name's Maddie. I'm looking for Vlad Masters. Is he here?"

"Yeeeeessssss..." he said slowly, the dismal look reappearing on his face. His arms crossed against his chest and he fell to the side so his shoulder rested against the door frame. He eyed her from head to toe, taking in her bag, before returning his gaze to her face and narrowing his eyes. "What do you want with him? He's kind of having a... party." The last word came out like it was poison.

It was obvious the teen despised her Vlad nearly as much as she did. That - and her speak-first-think-second personality - had the words coming out of her mouth. "I'm going to hurt him. Badly."

With an almost feral grin, the boy stepped aside and swept a hand out for her to enter his home. "After you... Maddie, right?" When she nodded, he closed the door and said, "I'm Danny."

Her bag was set near the door and she followed him to the living room. There was the friendly couple she'd been chatting with for some weeks. And there he was: Vlad Masters. Slick white hair, oily smile, and a cruel glint to his eyes. Her fingers clenched into a fist.

All three adults turned to her, their mouths dropping open in unison at the sight of her two-sizes-too-big body stuffed into a mini skirt and strapless top. "Hey," Danny said, dropping into a chair with a satisfied grin on his face. "This is Maddie - she's here to talk to Vlad."

The couple seemed to recognize her name, surprised to see what she looked like but apparently willing to overlook it. She felt a instant warm feeling at that. Vlad's eyes were still cold and distant - cruel. The same eyes she remembered from the pictures. "Who are you?" he asked simply, the static in his voice coming through and making her spine tingle.

It was exactly how she expected him to react. Cold, cruel, and unforgiving. A man who would never be her father, not truly.

"Do you remember Carolyn Frindley?" she said.

"Vaguely," he replied with a scowl. "We were briefly married."

She nodded, taking a few steps forwards, making sure her white hair and blue eyes were clearly visible. "I'm her daughter, Maddie."

The man frowned. "That's too bad. How can I help you?"

She smiled and stepped forwards until she was within arms reach. He leaned back slightly to prevent contact with her amble and jiggling chest. "You're my father," she said slowly.

His eyes narrowed, anger in his face. "You are-"

He never got to finish the sentence. Her eyes flared a brilliant green and she slammed her fist into the side of his face. He went down like a sack of potatoes. Somewhere behind her was a quiet cheer - perhaps two, but her ears might have been deceiving her. "That's for running out on my mother when you knew she was pregnant." Before he could stagger to his feet, she planted a firm kick between his legs. "And that's for never returning my phone calls."

"Where'd my duffel bag run off to?" she wondered quietly. Danny was on his feet in an instant, grabbing her bag and handing it to her.

When she dug out the razor, Danny chuckled. "Hair?" he asked.

She nodded, a fierce grin on her face. "Hair." Vlad, still clutching himself and gasping for air, looked up at her with a strange look in her eyes. She knelt down and grabbed a chunk of his hair and held it up, her eyes green with delight and energy fizzling around her. "And this is for everything else, _Dad_."

* * *

Updated 9/8/2011  
Because I am **still **distracted by TV  
Thanks for reading!


	73. Indentured Servitude

More dA drabbles coming your way.

* * *

**Indentured Servitude**  
A Danny Phantom FanFic by Cordria

* * *

Danny sat on the floor of Vlad's lab, staring down at his fingers. They were strong, but very thin. It worked, though, since the rest of him was the same. Strong but thin. Like a whip.

He curled his fingers into a fist and hummed softly under his breath, watching the way his claw-like fingernails caught at the bright fluorescent lights. They really needed to be clipped, but he never did. Not when they got the reaction he wanted.

"Daniel," came a curt shout from the other side of the lab. Danny didn't even bother to look up as he got to his feet and made his way across the large room, carefully skirting a strange bunch of equipment. When he neared Vlad's side, Danny stayed quiet. He locked his hands together behind his back - to prevent himself from strangling anyone, he told himself - and looked up at the white-haired man.

It was long moments before Vlad snarled and twisted around, a look of anger on his face. "Dan-" he cut himself off, obviously startled at Danny being right beside him. He blinked, once, then caught himself, twisting his surprise into a dark glare. "Finally. Move faster next time."

A fist appeared and slammed into the side of Danny's head. Caught unaware, Danny dropped to his knees, his eyes going blurry for a moment. He closed his eyes tightly, struggling to control a wave of intense fury, then let out a very slow breath. When that really didn't help, he spelled out _mass murder_, _justifiable homicide_, and _life sentence _under his breath before getting back to his feet.

He looked up at Vlad with a blank expression on his face, ignoring the new ache in the side of his head. The man had turned back to his experiment, poking and prodding at a strange goo with a glass rod. "_This _is it?" he snapped.

Danny nodded. "Yes."

Vlad twisted his head and narrowed his eyes. "Yes...?"

"Yes, master," Danny completed dutifully without missing a beat, although his mouth curled like he was trying to talk through a mouthful of poison. "I looked very carefully."

The man made a dark noise in the back of his throat and leaned back over the goo. "What in Hell did that idiot invent this time?" he muttered to himself. Danny, carefully locking his fingers together again as the exposed back of Vlad's neck was slightly too tempting, didn't bother to answer. "Ten million for goop?"

After a few minutes of silent poking and prodding, Danny rocked forwards and backwards on his feet and looked away from Vlad. Stolen and 'borrowed' inventions scattered the high-tech lab. Most of them were partially disemboweled, the world's most uncreative scientist desperately searching for how they worked. A few of them were blinking their lights pathetically, sort of a strange machine-like SOS or a desperate plea for a quicker death.

In almost ironic coincidence, one of the scientist's tubes held a mostly unconscious ghost - in the process of being dissected - that managed to turn its half-destroyed head in Danny's direction and mouth helplessly in pure and unimaginable pain. Danny stared at the ghost, then looked away, his fingers clenching tighter.

"Get me a glass of water," Vlad ordered suddenly. "Three ice cubes."

Danny kept still for a moment, tense and angry, then forcibly relaxed his muscles and stalked to the small kitchenette in the corner of Vlad's lab. He picked out the dirtiest glass he could find, filled it with hot water, then dropped in three ice cubes - but not before sucking on them and covering them with his own spit. His fingers clenched tightly around the glass as he carried it back, holding it out to Vlad.

Vlad grabbed it, studied it, then threw it straight at Danny's head. Danny didn't bother to duck - he knew better. The glass slammed into Danny's head, the sharp rim slicing open a small cut on his forehead that leaked blood. The tepid water sluiced into his shirt and the slobbered ice cubes tinkled to the ground. "Try again, _slave_." Vlad sneered at him, his eyes cold and strangely excited.

Picking up the glass, Danny navigated the slippery spots on the floor and headed back to the kitchen. "Do it right this time, or else," came the almost cheerful order.

His fingers tightened around the glass, imagining it to be Vlad's neck. The glass made a screaming sort of sound and Danny let off the pressure, not wanting to crack it and slice his hand open. That'd be his sort of luck - slavery _and_ a gashed-open hand wound with bits of glass driven in just to be extra painful.

It took only a few moments to select a clean glass, get the cold water, and drop in three of the ice cubes. Danny stared at the glass, sitting daintily on the counter and waiting for him to grab it, and scowled. Finally he snatched it, spilling more than a little water, and stormed back to Vlad. The man accepted it and drank without so much as a thank you.

"May I go?" Danny asked after a moment, starting to feel a bit itchy from the water dripping into his shorts. When Vlad didn't even make a motion to suggest he'd heard a word, Danny sighed and closed his eyes, rephrasing his question. "Master? May I go get your supper ready?" There were odd pauses in his sentence, almost like he was fighting to get the words out.

Vlad hummed a few moments, leaning forwards and practically pressing his nose into the goop that Danny had been forced to steal from his own parents. "Fine, go," Vlad finally muttered, waving his hand at Danny in a dismissive way. "Just remember that you're eating anything I eat."

Danny nodded and turned to leave, but Vlad suddenly grabbed him by the nape of his neck and threw him to the ground, snarling. The man grabbed his hair and jerked his head backwards, exposing the delicate part of his neck. "What did you forget, _slave_?"

The boy squirmed as Vlad's knee pressed into the small of his back, sending sharp pains shooting up his spine and making his legs tingle. "Sorry," Danny whispered, struggling to not fight back. "I'll do better. Please," he begged, tears in his eyes, just like he knew Vlad wanted.

With a scowl, Vlad slammed his head into the ground, causing stars to erupt in Danny's eyes and warm liquid to stream from his nose, then got to his feet. "You'd better," the man warned.

Danny slowly pressed his hands to the ground, forcing himself to his hands and knees. Blood dripped steadily from his nose and pain speared through his head. With a swallow and a bit of unsteady motions, Danny got to his feet. He swayed a moment, trying to ignore the blood oozing down his throat, and kept his face blank of the rage he was feeling.

When Vlad just waited, his arms crossed and a smirk on his face, Danny let out a breath and repeated his earlier request in as docile a tone as he could manage. "May I go, Master?"

The man nodded, picking up a hand to smooth his white hair, and said, "Don't get any blood into my supper, slave."

Danny nodded his head in acknowledgement, then bowed. "Master," he whispered - as he'd been told to do but consistently refused to do - and retreated from the lab. Vlad watched him go with a satisfied curl to his lips.

In the hallway, Danny swiped at his upper lip and stalked away. His first stop would be 'his' room - more of a closet than anything else - for a change of clothes and something to stuff up his nose for a bit. Then he'd head up to the kitchen and contemplate how best to destroy Vlad's supper plans without going too far. Of course, his third stop would be the broom closet for a mop to clean up the blood before Vlad went ballistic.

He stopped in front of the door to the room Vlad had ordered him to use, noting with a dismal sense of humor that Vlad had tacked a whip onto the door. It was new - not yet bloody - and had small bits of metal at the end of the long strand. No doubt it as a warning of the future if Danny continued to toe the wrong line.

Danny tore it off the door and dropped it through the floor and a large portion of the foundation. He'd gotten the message, loud and clear. Now he just needed Vlad to get the message he was trying to send.

He grabbed the doorknob - the entire room was phase-proof, a trick no doubt thought up by Vlad so he'd be able to lock Danny up if needed - but hesitated. The gazed at the door just down the hallway. The one with the lock on it.

Slowly, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that Vlad wasn't watching, Danny crept down the hallway and pressed his ear to the door. The usual sounds from inside had stopped. Silence reigned, and Danny couldn't decide if that were good or bad.

Danny closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the thick door, letting a few tears cloud his vision. "I'm working on it," he whispered, knowing the occupant of the room couldn't hear him. "Just hang on. Please."

Visions danced in his head. Vlad wouldn't live through this. That monster would be rotting in Hell before long. And everything - _everything_- Vlad had done to them in the process would be done to him before he died. Including locking him up in a dark room with explosives and the warning that they'd go off at any moment.

It took a long moment before Danny got to his feet and went back to his room. Supper needed to be made and Danny'd just gotten a really good idea how to ruin it.

* * *

Updated 9/8/2011  
Because I am **still **distracted by TV  
Thanks for reading!


	74. Dragon's Child

**Random stuff. I've given up trying to 'finish' stories... so yeah. **

**Between my two jobs, I work 60+ hours a week. Most of my writing time has been devoted to my book I'm writing (...revising now. Yay!). I'm hoping to get to write more fanfic, so we'll see how much I get to actually post. :)**

**No guarantees in life, though.**

* * *

**Dragon's Child**  
_A Danny Phantom FanFic by Cori_

* * *

Danny had plenty of issues in his life. Most went unmentioned – except to his closest friends – but this particular issue seemed like it needed… something. Perhaps to get off of him.

He twisted his head around to glare up at the dragon that was currently pinning him on his stomach to the ground. It had a dopey-looking smile on it face and seemed like it was getting ready to lick him again now that it had access to his face. The faint glow around its blueish scales signaled its true nature – that of a ghost – and it had sparkling green eyes.

"Get off me," he snapped, wrenching his arm free from under his body and taking a backwards swipe at the dragon's nose. He missed.

Wagging its tail, the dragon snaked its head forwards and landed a sloppy lick to the side of Danny's head. Danny's normally perfectly-messy hair ended up gooped up into a Mohawk.

"Need some help?"

Danny squirmed on the ground, trying to dislodge the dragon while not looking too stupid in front of his friends. Or, more specifically, just one of those two friends. The other one didn't care how he looked. "Not yet," he ground out.

A slim hand appeared in the corner of his eye. "Oh look, it's got a note tied around its neck," Sam said.

There was a crinkling of paper as Danny managed to get the dragon mostly off of him and sit up. From this vantage point, the ghost-dragon was much smaller than Danny had assumed it would be. Every other dragon he'd ever met had been huge – easily the size of a house. This one was barely up to a small horse.

The dragon crouched low to the ground, its tail waving high in the air. It reminded Danny of a dog wanting to play fetch. Despite the ache in his back from the weight of the dragon, he smiled. Just a little.

"Sir Phantom," Sam read, finally getting the paper smoothed out enough to read.

Danny arched an eyebrow at the name, taking his eyes off the dragon for a second to glance at the girl. She was smothering a snicker, obviously having read further along in the note. The dragon took the moment to land a slobbery lick to the other side of Danny's head.

"I am going on vacation for a few weeks. You have been honored-" Sam stopped, the giggling unable to be contained. Tucker appeared next to her, setting down his latest gadget to glance at the paper. His eyebrows climbed over the rims of his glasses. After a second or two, Sam continued, "-_honored_ with the privilege of watching my son while I am gone. His name is Gregory. Signed, Queen Dora."

Pushing the dragon away, Danny climbed to his feet and grabbed the paper. The three hand-written sentences were the only things on the page. He flipped it over and over in his hand, looking for the 'gotcha', the 'just kidding', or the something-similar-in-the-ghost-world that he was missing.

There was none.

"Uuuuhhhhnnn." Not even Danny was sure what the noise he'd just made meant.

The two-and-a-half humans looked over at the dragon, watching it – him – follow one of the butterflies flitting in the park. Fortunately, trees had blocked the tiny dragon from view so far, but the park was far from empty on the warm spring day. Birds were chirping and the wind was blowing gently through the trees.

"Now what?" Tucker asked.

"I bring him back to the ghost zone," Danny answered exasperatedly. "He's not staying _here_."

Sam took a tentative step forwards, running her fingers over the ridges above the dragon's glowing eyes. She stopped after only a moment, rubbing her fingers together, no doubt having been shocked by the ghost's ambient energy. "He's really pretty though."

Tucker gasped dramatically and grabbed Danny's shoulder as if it were the only thing keeping him upright. "Gasp, Sir Phantom. A reason to keep thine beast. The goth-maiden thinks he's 'pretty'. How often does that happen?"

Danny shook his head, rolling his eyes with a comment on the tip of his tongue, but he tensed when some voices started to drift up from the park. They got louder for a moment, but then started to get faint again. "Let's get him back home before someone sees him."

Stepping forwards, Danny grabbed the young dragon's collar. "Come on… what's his name?"

"Gregory," Sam answered.

"Yeah, Gregory. Come on." Danny tugged on the collar. The dragon looked up at him and stretched his wings, letting the blue-green scales glitter in the sunshine. Danny smiled and vanished in a flash of light. Phantom drifted into the air. "Come on…"

Up on its haunches, the dragon looked like he was about to jump into the air and fly with him, but then the dragon yawned. He closed his wings and settled back to the ground, curling up and settling its tail around its nose. The brilliant green eyes closed.

Phantom stared at the dragon. "Dragon." He dropped back to the ground and poked the ghost. "Hey."

The dragon opened an eye to gaze at him, but then closed it again.

"This is going well," Tucker drawled. He rested an arm on Phantom's shoulder for a moment, but Phantom – being a ghost – didn't let that happen. Tucker stumbled, off-balance, when his armrest abruptly didn't exist anymore. "Plan B?"

Phantom ran a hand over his face. "Fine. You two stay here with…"

"Gregory," Sam filled in helpfully.

"Yeah, him," Phantom muttered. "I'm going to go find his mother and have a word or a hundred."

His phone in his hand, snapping pictures of the dragon, Tucker nodded. "Remember I gotta be home for supper tonight or my mom will destroy me. Then kill me. Then make me clean her house with a toothbrush – in that order."

"Shouldn't take that long," Phantom said, crossing his fingers.

.

He was right. It didn't take that long at all.

"What do you _mean_ the portal's not working!" Danny's mouth was dangling open, dread curling up inside his stomach. The basement laboratory was the usual mess, but the normally comforting glow of the portal was missing. In its place was a collection of wires and parts that didn't look anywhere near working. "It was working this morning!"

"Of course it was, Sweetie," his mother said, soldering a new wire in place on some gadget. "We took it offline an hour ago."

"Why?" The word came out more whiney than Danny'd expected it would.

His father appeared, patting Danny painfully on the back. It hurt more than usual after having a dragon land on him. "Maintenance. Gotta have the best technology in the cutting-edge… technology…" he trailed off, looking a little confused as to where he was going with that sentence. "Don't worry though. Give us a week or two and The Fenton Ghost Portal – version four – will be up and running and better than ever."

"We'll be able to calibrate it better. Perhaps even record the activity going through it," his mother added. "These new sensors should really help-"

"_A week?_" Danny whispered, the dread curling in his stomach transforming into something with teeth.

"Maybe two," his mother said with a smile. "You can help if you want, you know."

"But-" Danny cut himself off before he started in on his dragon problem. 'Telling parents' was generally plan Q – it used to be plan P (for 'p'arents), but it got pushed back by a new plan F a few weeks earlier. He was nowhere near plan Q just yet. "Whatever."

Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Danny twisted around on his heel and stalked back upstairs to the kitchen. Once he was out of eyesight and sensor-sight, he turned into Phantom and vanished back into the sky.

.

By the time he made it back to the park, Sam and Tucker had managed to get the young dragon up and moving. The trio was making their slow way into the depths of the park, away from the prying eyes of the populace of Amity Park. Phantom dropped through the trees and was human again before his feet hit the ground.

He was instantly assaulted by a slobbery tongue undoing all the work the wind had done.

"That was fast."

Danny glared at Tucker. "My parents took the portal off-line to do some 'upgrades'. Wonderful timing, as usual."

Tucker hummed and pulled out his phone, typing a few things. "Yet another prime example…"

"Stop it." Danny tried to yank the phone out of his friend's hand, but Tucker swiveled away and pushed it back into his pocket. "My parents are not doing this on purpose."

"Suuure," Tucker drawled. "You realize that once, maybe twice, that's coincidence. But thirty-four instances of 'wonderful timing' in four months is starting to look suspicious."

The dragon nudged its head under Danny's arm, making a strange purring sound. Almost absently, Danny scratched at the dragon's soft scales. "You seriously think my parents know there's a ghost dragon in the park and they took the portal off to make me keep him?"

Tucker snorted. "No. I'm just saying it's suspicious. Ultimate in back luck, maybe."

"So you're keeping him?" Sam asked. She brushed some of her black hair behind an ear.

"Not sure I have a lot of choice at the moment." The dragon's purring got louder when Danny's fingers hit a sensitive spot on the top of his head. "Plan C involves Vlad's portal. Keeping a dragon for a week seems easier than dealing with Plasmius."

"True." There was a beat of silence. "So where are we going?"

The three teenagers glanced at each other, then around in the park. Trees and bushes for as far as the eye could see with just the faintest hint of the city over the tops of the branches. All three of them knew the dragon couldn't just be left in the park.

Sighing, Danny shook his head. "He can't come to my house. He'll set off ever sensor my parents have ever installed."

"I'm in enough hot water from the Youngblood thing, my house is off-limits," Tucker chimed in quickly.

Both boys turned to look at the goth girl – the one who was always doodling badly-drawn dragons in her notebook and happened to live in a huge house filled with empty rooms. She stared back at them, hands on hips. She shook her head. "You promised. No ghosts in my house."

Danny and Tucker exchanged a glance, then Danny shrugged and pulled his backpack off his back. "Fine. I guess there's only one option left." The Thermos glittered in his hand as it came into the sunshine. "He can spend the week in here."

As expected, Sam flinched. Her mouth moved silently, struggling for something to say. "Fine," she burst out as Danny unscrewed the cap and pointed the Thermos towards the young ghost. "He can stay at my house. Put that away."

Nodding, Danny dropped it back and slung the backpack onto his back. "If you say so, Sam."

"Nothing should have to live in that small of a space," she grumbled, her arms crossed firmly against her chest, a scowl on her face.

"It's not really 'living' if he's a ghost… should it still count?" Tucker asked.

Sam shot him a dirty look. "Let's just get him to my place and find a room for him."

Unfortunately, the dragon had gotten bored with the conversation and had found a sunny place amongst the trees to curl up and take another nap. His eyes were closed, the soft sound of snoring coming from his general direction.

Tucker licked his teeth and rocked back on his heels. "I see a problem with Sam's plan. How are we going to get him there?"

Danny unzipped his backpack and charged the Thermos. Sam opened her mouth to argue, but Danny just shrugged. "I'll let him go when we get there. Or do you have a better plan?"

Shaking her head, Sam closed her eyes as the dragon was swept up in the light.

* * *

_Uploaded 3/23/13  
Thanks for reading!  
_


	75. Dragon's Child 2

**Still no guarantees, but this is promising?**

* * *

**Dragon's Child (part 2)**  
_A Danny Phantom FanFic by Cori_

* * *

After a lot of deliberation (too much, in Danny's opinion), Sam decided the best place for the dragon-ghost-kid was in the attic. Nobody went up there anymore and it was relatively spacious.

While Danny agreed that spacious and vacant were two very good properties, he did have one issue with the choice. "You're going to put a heavy, playful _dragon_ upstairs? Isn't that going to sound like you're trying to smuggle elephants away from the circus?"

"Again?" Tucker added with a snicker.

Sam put her hands on her hips and glared at Tucker. "Those animals were being mistreated. And it doesn't matter if the dragon's in the attic or the basement – he's a ghost. Ghosts don't weigh anything."

"Tell that to my back," Danny muttered, but he dug out the Thermos anyway. He knew what complaining would bring him: having to keep the dragon somewhere else.

He paused with a finger on the Thermos' buttons. Now, that might be an idea. Dash with a dragon in his room…

Sam made his decision for him, pulling the Thermos from his hands and letting the dragon out. Little Gregory – Prince Gregory? – appeared in a flash of light. He spread his blue wings, stirring up more than a little dust, and snuffled a few times. Then the dragon set out to explore his new surroundings, nosing into (literally – he was a ghost) every box in the attic.

Yanking the Thermos back, Danny stored it in his backpack and watched the ghost get himself stuck halfway through an old reclining chair. It took a few moments for the dragon to figure out how to get himself free. "Now what?" Danny asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets and rocking back on his heels.

Tucker shrugged. "You think the dragon will stay here by himself?"

Danny sent the young dragon – currently entranced by small rainbows of light on the floor – a doubtful look. "Probably not. But I'm not staying up here for a week. I can't miss another day of school."

"So you're going to have a dragon following you around all week?" Tucker arched an eyebrow.

"Me!" Danny processed that, then whapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. "Yeah, sure, me. Of _course_, me. Why would it _not_ be me? Everything happens to me, right Sam?"

The two boys turned towards the female of the group. She was watching the little dragon play with the rainbow of light on the ground with a strange smile on her face. Both of the young men mentally described it the same way – 'cute' – but refused to utter the word aloud.

"Hey, Sam." Danny reached forwards and touched her shoulder.

Sam flinched. "What?" She blinked at Danny, obviously startled out of some sort of deep thought.

"How am I going to keep this dragon from following me around all day?" Danny tipped his head to the side and smiled. "'Cause, you know, the letter was kinda addressed to me."

"He's like a puppy," Sam said, looking back at the child dragon. "Away from his mother for the first time. I think they're a lot alike."

Tucker shook his head. "I don't think a clock, a hot-water bottle, and a blanket is going to do much for a ghost."

She crossed her arms across her chest and shook her head. "He's… supposed to be around you. He found you out of all the people on the planet. All the ghosts too… Maybe _you're_ the blanket." She glanced over at Danny.

"First, ew. Second, how does that help?"

"We can clone him!" Tucker cut in. His eyes were bright and he smashed a fist into an open palm. "Perfect plan. One Danny can stay here and the other can hang out with us. I call the fun one."

"No." Danny backed away from Tucker and held his hands up in a cross-shape. "No more splitting, cloning, duplicating, or otherwise making more of me. It makes my head hurt."

Sam grabbed Danny's outstretched arms and pulled them down. "Knock it off. That's not what I meant anyways. We don't need to clone _you_, just your ectosignature. The thing the dragon honed in on. Kind of like a speaker, playing music here."

"Hmpf," Tucker snorted. "I guess that'd work. I liked my plan better."

"I don't. I vote for Sam's plan." A hand snaked up to rub at the back of his neck, Danny's eyes narrowing as he thought. "I even think I know the perfect thing to do that… hang on a minute."

Without waiting for an answer, Danny vanished from sight. Tucker and Sam exchanged sighs and shakes of heads. Ever since Danny had turned into a ghost, he had seemingly forgotten how to say 'goodbye'. And 'please', but that was another story.

The little dragon huffed nervously, looking around and stretching his wings, and then vanished too.

Sam and Tucker exchanged another glance, this one with a lot more panic in it, then took off running for the stairs.

.

As the weeks of ghost-hood passed, Phantom got more and more bold around his parents. The first few months, he wouldn't transform within blocks of his house. Today, he landed on the steps leading down into the basement before turning back into Danny. Either one of the adults could have looked up and seen what happened.

Neither did. They never did.

Danny mentally put another tally on Tucker's 'weird coincidence/good timing' chart about his parents. Perhaps his friend had a point.

"Hey Mom," he called, tramping down the steps and taking the last few at a leap. The floor was littered with bits of the ghost portal. Clumsy Danny Fenton managed to land, perfectly balanced, on his toes in the only few square inches of free space near the stairs.

…his parents didn't notice that either. Two tally marks.

"You're back quick," his mother muttered, holding some vial of liquid up to the light. "Weren't you just here fifteen minutes ago?"

Danny paused and thought about that, then nodded. He took one of the tally marks away. "Yeah, I forgot to ask you something. Do you still have that radio Dad was messing with?"

"The Fenton Ecto-Record-ifier?" his father boomed from across the room.

Danny peered around the masses of stuff to where his father was crouched near the disturbingly empty portal. "I think so. The radio. The one that played ghost sounds."

It didn't, not really. It held a tape of his father making spooky noises and every now and then screaming the word 'boo'. But the older man claimed the only reason it _didn't_ play ghost sounds was due to the fact that he had no ghosts to record.

"It's over there," his mother said, gesturing with her free hand, "behind the Fenton Ghost-Grill and underneath the Fenton Ghost-Proof-Tent. Your father took it camping. What do you need it for?"

There was no way Danny was going to tell them the truth, so he fell back on his usual excuse. "School project."

His mother nodded and went back to work, so Danny worked his way through the lab to the pile of camping supplies. There, as he'd been told, was the radio. He grabbed it and started to head towards the stairs, but his father called, "Be careful, I upgraded the batteries. Don't try to change them."

Danny froze and held the radio up to his ear. Sure enough, something inside the battery compartment was growling. "Uh-huh." He stared down at the radio, trying to decide which was worse: rabid batteries in a radio or the chance of a ghost following him around all the time.

If Danny would have just headed up the stairs, the following few moments would have been a lot simpler. Instead, just chose to stand there and think about it.

He really had to learn to stop thinking about things.

Somewhere between the thought of whether there was a vaccine for rabid batteries and how much trouble would he get into for bringing a dragon to school, said dragon burst through the ceiling and landed in his parents' lab.

For a few long seconds, his parents didn't even notice. Danny stayed still as the dragon eyed him and looked around the lab. He was just starting to relax, thinking he could scoop the dragon up and disappear, when the dragon's tail knocked into the perilously-restacked camping equipment.

His parents noticed _that_. The clatter of it all falling to the ground was a bit hard to miss.

"A dragon?" his mother said softly. She was frozen with the vial of liquid still in the air, staring in the dragon's direction.

Quite unfortunately, the dragon had also heard the noise behind him and had gotten scared. So he'd done what all children do in the case of fear. He'd found the nearest safe person and burrowed his head into Danny's shirt.

There was a horrible moment when Danny stared right into his mother's eyes. She blinked at him.

"GHOST!" His father took that moment to join the conversation, grabbing the nearest ecto-gun and pointing it in the dragon-ghost's general direction. The clatter of the large man extricating himself from his cocoon of technology was too much for the little dragon to handle. The dragon took off flying and vanished through the ceiling.

Jack, finally freeing himself, raced up the stairs after the dragon. Danny, smiling faintly at his mother, followed. A new four-letter word slammed into his head with every step he had to climb, the ghostly radio held firmly in his hand.

The second he was out of his mother's sight – and not yet into his father's – Danny disappeared into Phantom. He raced towards the faint glow of the young dragon's ectosignature. Digging the Thermos back out of his backpack, Danny stuffed the radio in.

It took less than a minute for the young dragon to be back in the safety of the Thermos, his father left to chase after more normal ghosts: the ones that don't exist.

* * *

_Uploaded 3/24/12  
Thanks for reading again!  
_


	76. Skydiving

**I have randomly decided to start posting again, for various reasons. Most of which involves my life NOT being a Living Hell for the first time in rather a while. :) Expect regular updates.  
**

**Not my best work ever, but it's a start. Gotta get flowing again.  
**

* * *

**Skydiving**  
A Danny Phantom FanFic by Cordria

* * *

She was screaming even before she was pushed from the plane. The roaring sound of the propeller vanished under the rush of air in her ears. Her eyes closed almost instinctively, her arms and legs pinwheeling for a long moment.

By the time she peeled her eyes back open, watering in the wind, the plane was already far above her. A face was leering out the open door, watching her fall, too distance to make out any facial expression. One of her hands reached upwards, her fingers grasping. She seemed to be trying to grab the plane and have it carry her safely back to the ground. That was nonsense, of course, and she knew it. But that didn't stop her from trying.

Finally, she had to breathe. The scream stopped momentarily, only to be picked up by a stream of curse words. As she made sure the man (who couldn't hear her anymore) was thoroughly aware of her thoughts on the matter of being pushed out a plane, she angled her body and flipped over in the air.

Stare death straight in the eyes. Watch the ground come up to smash her to bits. It had to be better than never knowing when it was going to happen.

Right?

They really hadn't been that high up. Just having a polite little chat, the two of them, about their mutual friend. Well, one of them considered the half-breed to be a friend. The other one was a piece of paperwork short of clinical insanity and only the devil knew what was going on in his brain.

The plane had just taken off. A few words exchanged, a cold beverage offered and refused. Politely. Then the door had flown open and the elder half-human had pushed her out of the plane.

No warning, no explanation, no gloating or attempt at kidnapping and holding hostages. Just... whoosh.

The trees were too close. Even if she had a parachute, it probably wouldn't have helped. It wouldn't have been able to open in time to do much more than break every bone in her body, rather than kill her.

The air pressed in on her ears, preventing her from hearing the plane explode. The light caught her eye, though, and she glanced up. Pieces flew in every direction, smoke trailing and roaring into the sky, flames appearing and disappearing almost as quickly.

A bomb, perhaps. Had Vlad pushed her from the plane to save her life? Maybe, but it was a wasted gesture on a girl with no ghost powers nor parachute. He'd probably forgotten.

A macabre corner of her mind happily noted that the plane had flown quite a distance in the few seconds before it exploded. Hopefully it wouldn't land on her body. She always wanted to be buried as a complete person. Best chance of zombie-return that way.

People came into focus below her, staring upwards at the explosion, several pointing in her direction. Hopefully screaming. Flowers started to appear as splotches of color in gardens. She started to count down, in her mind. One last game, trying to time something perfectly. Ten, nine, eight...

Something green and neon, in the corner of her vision. "Danny!" She broke off swearing at the man just long enough to scream the name and twist her head. Seven, six...

The boy she'd been on the plane to talk about wasn't looking in her direction. He was staring up at the explosion, like everyone else. She screamed his name again as she focused back on her rapidly approaching death. She could almost see the whites of people's eyes. She was going to hit the road, just outside the Nasty Burger. Not what she wanted on her epitaph. Five...

A flash of black to the side. Her heart soared as she jerked in the direction, her arms reaching for her ultimate, last minute salvation. Four...

It wasn't him. It was a kite.

Three, two, one.

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Posted May 3, 2012  
Thanks for reading!


	77. Boom

Was going to work on this more, make it to the full-length story rather than posting it here, but I want to get working on other stories and get them finished. This is all plotted out and may be finished in the near-ish future.

* * *

**Boom  
** A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Cori

* * *

My shoes alternate between squeaking and pattering against the ground. Wind rushes past my ears as I hurry down the hallway. _Left right left right squeak right left-_

"Walk, please!" It's an anonymous voice I don't try to place. I slow, but only until I turn a corner.

Something cold and pressing tingles in the back of my throat, pressing against my thoughts. _Gotta find it, gotta find it, gotta find it_ – there is a steady litany pouring through my brain, hurrying my feet along. Something bad would happen if I don't.

_Door. Door. Open door, slow down. Door. Door. Hallway breaking off to the right – keep going straight, the ghost is-_

_Vlad?_

My shoes squeak almost wincingly-loudly on the newly waxed floor of the school hallway as I wrench myself to a stop just out of sight of the corridor. I creep back to the corner, fingers against cold stone, and peer down the hallway. Disgust sends sharp needles into my brain.

Vlad is here, black suit pressed and buttoned, white hair impeccably combed, looking pompous and better-than-you. I feel my heart start to race. Something that can only be described as pure revulsion floods through my stomach.

The fruit loop is talking to the vice principal. Lancer looks… furious. I've never seen Lancer so angry – red faced, tense, almost pained.

Weird. Vlad usually goes out of his way to only piss off people that are about to die. It's one of his more endearing traits. I wonder what-

_Cold. Find it._

I let out a soft groan and my breath fogs in the air in front of me. This ghost's timing absolutely sucks. Here I wanted to find out what too-rich-for-his-own-good was doing, and some ghost has to break into the school. My feet start to move down the hallway again even as my thoughts stay on Vlad's odd presence.

_Two doors, a turn. Hurry, hurry, run…_

"Walk!" comes a shout through an open classroom door. I roll my eyes and keep going. The cold pushes further through my brain, worming into my muscles, making me tense and ready to fight. This ghost – whoever it is – won't know what hit it.

_Wait_… _The_ _Box Ghost?_

White. Pure, blinding, heaven-sent white. It eats everything else.

There isn't a sound. It's just pure power in the air, thrumming through everything. I feel my body getting tossed backwards, try to cover my head with my arms, but _things_ slam into me.

Black.

Black.

Pain comes and goes, ebbing and flowing like the tides. Now and then, when the pain is at its worst, I think I can feel someone standing beside me. But the pain always fades again, vanishing into nothingness.

Blackness. Even when I open my eyes, even when I blink away the grit and the tears. Blackness.

And the silence. There's not even a ringing in my ears. It's just endless quiet.

Then the feel of softness under my body. I'm lying down, something light and warm lying on me. I try to move my arm, but the pain spikes and I stop.

Something touches me. It's cold against my arm, light and flickering. My heart jumps into my chest as I jerk away into the darkness, eyes searching blindly for the thing that had touched me. It's too dark. I can't see. Pain flares every time I flinch.

_Fear. Panic. Who's there?_

It comes again, the cold thing, grabbing at my hand. Even as I pull away, gritting my teeth against the horrible tearing sensation in my chest every time I move, I realize it's a hand. Fingers. Someone is touching me.

Some _thing_? Had a ghost done this to me?

"Turn on a light," I beg. I feel my lips move. I feel the vibrations of my throat. I feel something thick wrapped on my face that pulls as I move my mouth.

Only I hear nothing but silence.

"Please," I try to whisper.

The fingers don't come back this time. There's a strange feeling of emptiness around me as the source of the fingers moves off into the blackness, still unseen. For a moment, I'm confident that I'm alone.

I pick up one hand, carefully bringing it to my face. I wiggle my fingers in front of my nose, unable to see even the barest hint of skin. Slowly, I trace my hand over my head.

Bandages, probably. They're wrapped around a good portion of my head. Some of my hair has been shaved to a wiry stubble. It feels like sandpaper under my fingertips.

My other arm refuses to move. Pain arcs into my brain at the merest thought of movement. I trace down my face, over to my arm. It's wrapped in a thick cast, held immobile against my body. I wiggle my toes. I can feel the thing over me move and rustle.

All in utter silence.

_Slow breaths, in and out. In and out. Don't panic until you know what's going on_.

My fingers quest out further, feeling the soft fabric that's covering me – probably a blanket – and then meet an edge. There's cold rails at the edge, perhaps six inches high. Metal. An image of a bed finally starts to coalesce in my brain. I'm lying in a bed?

_A presence. Two, three… maybe. What is…_

Cold fingers grab mine. I jerk my hand out of its grasp, almost sensing that something is near my face. I pull back from that too, trying to burrow myself into what I'm now realizing is a rather soft pillow.

This time, when the fingers grab my hand and wrist, they don't let go. They just hold on, ignoring my struggles and the fear that is making my eyes go wide and my breath rasp in my throat. "Let go," I demand, my voice once again utterly silent.

They don't. The fingers run over my hand, again and again, not doing anything but holding on and rubbing. They're warming up – perhaps they're not a ghost. Ghost fingers don't warm up.

I try to relax, allow myself to lie still, let the fingers keep playing with my hand. I don't like it, I want it to leave me alone. My heart is still pounding in my chest. My lungs are working too hard.

My hand is slowly flipped over so that it's palm-up. I tense again, waiting for something to happen, but it doesn't. The fingers just go back to stroking. "Who are you?" I try to ask. Nothing comes out. Nobody answers.

Just blackness.

And silence.

The stroking of my hand changes. It's not gentle strokes from my wrist to my fingers anymore. Now it's patterns traced against my palm. It makes my hand itch. Squirming a bit, I try to pull away, but the hand holding my wrist just tightens. The patterns continue.

_I don't like this._

The thought circles around and around in my brain like a shark. My arm shivers. Goosebumps run up my spine. There's literally nothing I can do, trapped in this dark and silent prison, but sit here and wait for the thing to let go of me.

_I don't like this at all._

It doesn't let go. It just keeps tracing the pattern. One, two, three, pause. One, two, three, pause. One, two, three, pause.

My racing heart starts to slow down. There's only so long I can maintain 'terror' mode.

Slowly, completely against my will, I start to pay attention to what the thing is tracing against my palm. A bumpy shape – two bumps, like the McDonald's sign. Then a circle. Then the two bumps again. Pause. Repeat.

I stare in the direction the thing must be, to be holding my right hand, trying my best to look disgruntled and off-put instead of terrified. Not that the thing can see me, in this intense darkness.

Two bumps. Circle. Two bumps.

_What in the world? Why is it_-

It hits. Suddenly and without warning. Two bumps. M. Circle. O. Two bumps. M.

M. O. M.

Breath catches in my throat as the word finally clicks into place. The reason for what the fingers were doing comes into focus. They were telling me something. Why? Is it holding my mother hostage? "Mom?" I try, hoping that she'd answer.

The now-warm fingers that had been tracing against my palm slide up my arm, cross my elbow, than cup my chin. I pull back, confused as to why this thing would do that.

"Where is my mom?" I ask into the silence.

Something leans close to me. I can feel it hovering over me. There's a sinking sensation when someone sits on the bed next to me. I flinch a bit, still desperately searching the darkness for some hint of the _thing_ doing this to me. Keeping me in this darkness.

The hand from my wrist comes up to brush through my hair. The person leans closer. Something warm and hard presses against my forehead. There's the feeling of warm breath brushing against my nose. Their face is very close to mine – touching.

Then I smell it. Almost like caramel apples. My mother's perfume.

"Mom?" I whisper again, hearing nothing, turning my head to search for her. She had to be close – Mom didn't wear much perfume.

My hand is grabbed again. I tense my arm, not wanting to move my hand, but the fingers are insistent. Allowing my arm to be moved in fits and starts, my hand is brought up to the thing's face.

_It's going to eat my fingers. Bite. Blood. Fear…_

Its face is warm. The lips on its mouth move, forming silent words. Then it moves my hand higher. Hair.

…Goggles?

The last puzzle piece slots into place. My fingers move over and over the rims of the old, worn goggles that I'd seen nearly every day of my life. There, I could feel the chip from when I'd 'borrowed' them and they'd fallen from the roof. One edge is a little melted from the first real ectoplasm experiment.

The fingers let go, but I don't let my hand drop. Instead, I slowly bring my hand down to trace over the face. My mother's face.

I feel a bit stupid as the warm feeling of being by my family settles into my chest.

"Mom," I whisper.

I can feel her lips move, but I can't hear anything that comes out. The fingers reappear to trace against my face. I don't pull away this time. I just stare in the direction my mother must be.

"Where are we? What happened?" I demand, silence coming from my mouth.

There's wetness on her face. On her cheeks.

She pulls me into a hug. There's a spike of pain at the movement that makes me flinch. She must feel as it she pulls away, but doesn't let go of my hand. I try to sit up, to reach for her, but her hand is steady against my shoulder and doesn't let me sit up.

The pulling pain in my chest that floods through me with every movement agrees with her.

_Lie down. Relax_. _Sleep_.

There's a strange feeling in my arm. Like cold water running under my skin. Then my body gets heavy.

Fingers against my cheek.

The pain recedes again, but the darkness never stops. It curls around me, slices through my brain like a thousand knives, and leaves me to dry as the pain starts to come back.

I lay still, feeling my eyes blink again and again. I'm still in a bed, still covered up by the light-weight blanket. Slowly, my fingers start to quest outwards. They trace over the soft blanket, touch the cold metal. No cold fingers grab mine. I'm lying alone in a twin-size bed.

Slowly, I bring my hand up to my face, rubbing at my eyes. There's grit from sleeping too much and none of the usual sparks when I push a bit too hard against my eyes. My mouth is dry, my nose feels like it's plugged. A thick bandage is wrapped around most of the right side of my head. There are more, smaller bandages on the left side of my head, scattered through my hair.

And there's tubes taped to my face. Tracing them from my nose to over my ears, I try to picture where they'd come from. I tap my finger against them, thinking about pulling them off.

I don't.

My left arm is still bandaged tightly against my body, the arm wrapped in a thick cast. Pain radiates from that side of my body with every breath I take. My fingers stick out the end of the cast and I can wiggle them just a little. Something brushes my hand when I move my fingers. Some strange bit of plastic is wrapped around one of the fingers of my left hand, like a cap. There's wires running from the cap off into the emptiness.

This, I pull off. I don't like wires.

Within seconds, cold hands are grabbing at mine, taking the bit of plastic out of my hands and carefully sliding it back on my finger. "No," I say as loudly as I can, pulling my good hand away from the stranger. "Don't touch me." I hear nothing, but I can feel the hands touching mine again, patting, ignoring me.

_Leave it on_, they're saying.

One of the hands – too thick to be my mother's – grabs my hand and turns it over. A finger traces against my palm. I sigh and close my eyes, disappointed when the view doesn't change. "Why can't you just talk to me?" I ask blandly.

The finger moves, not answering the question. Three patterns. Three letters. The second time through, I pay more attention. A mostly-circle. Three funky lines. Another mostly-circle.

It takes a few more repetitions before I pick up on what the letters are supposed to be. D. A. D.

"What happened?" I stare in the direction I think my father might be standing. It's nothing but blackness. "Where are we? What's going on?"

The answer is more silence. More blackness. A cold hand holding mine.

"I'm beginning to believe you're not my father," I mutter. My lips move, the air flows, but no sound makes it out of my mouth.

The hand just pats a few times. I suppose it's trying to be reassuring. I roll my eyes, not really all that reassured. "Are you going to tell me where we are?"

Rather than answering, the hand squeezes my fingers. It squeezes a little too hard, causing a flare of pain to shoot up my arm.

Trying to be helpful, I squeeze back and hide the wince. I'm not sure what we're trying to communicate, but at least it's something. Speaking seems to be a lost cause. Whatever's causing the blackness is making it so nobody can hear each other. Not for the first time, my brain runs through the list of ghosts I know.

A breath slips out of my mouth, sharp and frustrated. It's a pointless, empty exercise, trying to determine if – and if so, _which_ – ghost is causing this to happen. There's not much I could do about it anyway, not bandaged like I am.

The hand pats my arm. Then there's the cold feeling of water under my skin again. I draw my arm away, open my mouth to protest, but everything starts to recede again. The pain slips away, as does the feeling of the bed and the sheets and even the hand gripping my arm just a little too tight.

I suppose that's sleep, pulling at me. Even in the depths of unconsciousness, I can feel my mind trying to process everything that was going to, trying to make connections, trying to _understand_…

And I can't.

I only have some of the information. I only have little pieces from here and there to grasp at and trying to tangle together. I remember the Box Ghost, but surely that idiot of a spirit wasn't responsible for this.

I remember Vlad.

The thought jolts through me, snapping my eyes open to stare at the blankness around me. Empty pain settles into my brain, echoing in the cuts and bruises that no doubt litter my body. Vlad. And I was hurt, there was the flash of light. Now I'm lying in the darkness, in a bed.

I slowly reach up to trace over the cast on my arm. Over the bandages wrapped around my head. Over the half-shaved hair.

Vlad.

He did this? I would certainly explain the -

Fingers interrupt my thoughts, brushing against my hand. There's breath against my arm. I stare in the direction the person must be, squinting slightly. Nothing.

The fingers take my hand and turn it over, fingers starting to trace against my palm. I let out a frustrated breath, sick of communicating with finger brushes. Vlad was going to get it when I figured out how to get out of this place.

Three symbols. Pause. Three symbols. Pause.

Suddenly, I'd had enough. It was _my_ turn to talk. And I wanted some answers.

I jerked my hand out of the fingers, not bothering to find out what they were trying to say, and reached out to grab onto the hand. I grasped at nothing the first several tries, resorting to more-or-less waving my hand about until I hit something. Finally, the warm hand was in mine. I flipped the hand over and ran my fingers over their palm, trying to trace out letters. It was hard to do with only one hand.

I'd barely gotten started when the person pulled their hand from mine. "Hey!" I said, reaching for them, but the person easily snagged my hand.

That got a pause from me. I'd had a horrible time grabbing a stationary hand. And they had just gotten my _moving_ hand without a problem?

The person flipped my hand over and traced two letters, derailing the thought that had started to germinate. On the second time through, I got them. N. O.

"No? Why not?" I asked, trying to pull my hand away. Annoyance flared through me. "You can talk to me but I can't-"

Fingers appeared against my lips, pressing my mouth shut. I stopped talking, blinking into the darkness and trying to sink into the pillows on my bed. After a few beats, the fingers disappeared, trailing down my arm and back to my hand. The three symbols again.

I scowled and jerked my hand out of their reach, locking it close to my body and turning my head away from them. I glared out into the darkness. I felt my body tense, felt rather than heard the person beside my bed leave me alone. Left the side of the bed. Perhaps even left the room. All without me knowing who it was.

Relaxing a bit, I let my eyes drift closed. The pain that had momentarily faded with the commotion of the other person in the room started to make itself known again. Several sharper flares of pain caused my body to shift and ache.

Vlad.

My fingers drummed lightly against my cast as I let my thoughts drift back towards the light-stealing, money-grabbing, lie-filled excuse of a half-human. How in the world he was pulling this off I didn't know. But I knew – I _knew_ – Vlad was behind this. That was the only reason he was at the school… whatever day that had been. Several days ago.

Almost slowly, my fingers drifted up to the stubble on my head. The small bandages that were lightly covering rows of stitches. Had my head been completely shaved to put in those stitches? How long would it take my hair to grow that much?

Another thing to blame Vlad for. I didn't know the date. I was probably incredibly far behind on my homework and, knowing Lancer, I wouldn't be given a chance to make it up. A sigh wormed out of my throat.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep. Lost in the darkness, it was hard to keep track of being awake and being asleep. But suddenly hands were touching mine, a body was sitting beside me, indenting the side of the bed, and the smell of my mother's perfume was wafting over me.

I imagined her smiling at me, saying my name softly, as a hand appeared to trace the side of my face. Her slim fingers traced out three letters on my palm – M. O. M. – and I nodded.

She brought the hand up to her face, letting me trace over the smile that had formed on her face. Her lips moved silently as I gazed in the direction she should be. "I wish I could talk to you," I said softly. I hope I said.

It was a rather smooth manipulation of my hand that brought it up to touch my own ear. Then a flip of my palm and two neatly drawn letters. N. O. Then she moved my hand to run over my eyes. Then those two letters again. N. O. No sound. No light.

"I know," I said, nodding. "There's no light…"

My hand moved again, touching my lips. Then those two letters. N. O.

I blinked in her direction, confused. "I not supposed to talk?"

Her hand patted mine a few times. Then she did the movements again – ear, no, eyes, no, mouth, mo.

"I don't understand," I whispered, shaking my head. "You can't hear me?"

Again. Ear, no, eyes, no, mouth, no.

"This isn't helping," I said, frustrated. I pull my hand out of her grasp and reach out to trail my fingers up her arm until I reach her face. Carefully, deliberately, I touch her ear.

She seems to grasp the concept. She takes my hand and slowly traces three symbols. It takes a few times through before I get it. Y. E. S.

"What?" I pull my hand away and touch her ear again. Again she traces out the three symbols for 'yes'. She keeps my hand this time, bringing it back to my head. Touching my ear. Tracing out two symbols. 'No.'

I sit still, trying to figure this out, feeling her warm hands holding mine. Something needles at the back of my brain, but I push it away. I don't want whatever it is that thought is selling. Then I reach for her face and carefully trace over her eyes, questioningly.

I feel her smile. But I also feel a wetness on her cheeks. Tears. She pulls my hand to hers and traces out those three symbols again. Y. E. S.

Her ability to grab my hand without fumbling around. The way nobody has ever bumped into my bed. Eyes, yes.

…She can see.

If the world hadn't been silent already, I'm sure it would have fallen quiet at that revelation. My stomach seems to drop out of the bed, my heart clenching in my chest. For a long second, I don't even dare breathe, terrified that the knowledge growing in my brain would be unsettled by the barest hint of movement. Then it would tumble into reality. And I am almost sure I don't want to know.

My hand starts to shake. The fingers grasp tighter, holding close, pulling my hand to her mouth. I can feel her lips press a kiss against my fingers. Feel her lips move against my hand.

She can talk. She can see. She can hear.

Undoubtedly everyone can.

But me.

"Why?" I demand as the shaking of my hand moves through my body, pain making agonizing spikes in my brain as my body starts to tremble. "What happened? What's going on?" I scream the questions.

Nobody answers. My fingers press to my mouth. Two symbols. 'No.'

"No!" I pull away from her – pull back into the darkness – and try to sit up. I want out of here. I want… I don't even know where I am. But the last place I want to be 9sis this dark, quiet, trapped, suffocating-

Wires pull at me. I yank them out, ignoring my mother's hands trying to grab mine, hold me still. The tubes in my nose are pulled off, pushed over my head. The pain is astonishing, the way it wracks through me. I feel my legs convulse with the stabs of agony, already knowing they won't be able to hold my weight.

But I'm not staying here. I'mleaving. Or at least trying.

Then the cold feel of water under the skin of my arm. "No!" I shriek. I reach out, find a tiny tube that is feeding under my cast. I am going to pull on it, yank it out, stop the…

Everything slows. Fades.

Black.

Endless.

Abyss.

I find my toes first, wiggle them slightly. Feel the rasp of the sheet against my toenails. Then my fingers. They twitched. The blanket is soft and warm. Only then do I let my eyes drift open.

Nothing. Nothing as far as I can see.

I stare into the endless darkness, knowing that it is here for me. Enshrouding my mind. Wrapping my world in emptiness. Stealing the sound, the laughter, the songs…

And only from me.

I feel the tears creeping down the side of my face, not bothering to reach up to wipe them away. What had happened? How had Vlad done this to me – taken my hearing and my sight away? How _could_ he have done this to me?

Vlad is an evil, sadistic half-human. But this? Condemning me to a life of silence and darkness?

My breath catches in my chest as a sob wrenches itself from my body. I pull the blanket up over my face, lost and confused and broken. What kind of life is this – locked inside of myself? Unable to know the world around me?

Tears stain my pillow. Snot dribbles down the back of my throat, making me cough and choke. Pain radiates up from my broken arm every time my body shakes. I don't want this. I don't want this.

_I don't want this_.

Then the side of my bed shifts, depresses. I freeze a moment, not wanting to know who it is but desperately not wanting to be alone. The blanket over my head gently lifts and pulls away. Warm fingers softly brush the tears away from my eyes. Trace over my eyebrows.

She leans down and presses a kiss to my forehead before pulling me into her arms. It hurts to move – a _lot_. But I don't make a noise. I don't complain. I just burrow into her arms and rest my head against her shoulder and cry.

Hell with the fact that I'm sixteen.

Mom slowly rocks me back and forth, gently running her fingers through what's left of my hair. I can feel her breath against my ear. It's coming in little bursts. She probably talking. Saying something. Maybe even telling me it'll be okay. Not that I can hear her.

The thought drives straight through my heart and deep into my soul. I'll never hear my mom's voice again. Or my dad, explaining his latest and greatest piece of ghost technology. Or Jazz trying to psychoanalyze me. Or…

Suddenly my neck hurts. My nose is clogged and plugged, my eyes feeling dry and gritty. My body feels heavy and empty, still draining away the remains of sleep. Mom is still there, her arm tight around me. I move, trying to sit up, to relieve the pressure on my neck, and Mom carefully helps. She pushes me back against my pillows again.

I lay there, half-seating, half-lying down, letting Mom pat my hand and rub at my face with a warm, wet cloth. I wonder if she's talking.

"Mom?"

She stops. Her fingers touch my mouth, then trail down to my hand to trace those two damning letters.

I sigh. "I know," I mutter. Only, I didn't. My mouth is moving, I can feel the air passing through my mouth. But nothing.

I turn her hand over, palm up, and trace three letters of my own. M. O. M.

Her fingers grasp mine, squeezing tightly. I squeeze back. Questions build up in my chest, daring to burst open. I stare into the darkness in the direction she should be. Just before they tumble from my mouth, I bite my tongue.

Slowly, I turn her hand back over. Is this the life I'm condemned to – tracing letters on palms? I sit there a moment, my hand on hers, trying to condense all of those questions, everything that is trapped in my mind, into something I can trace out. I settle for something easy. W. H. Y.

When there's no response, I trace them again. I'm partway through the 'H' when Mom pulls her hand away. I blink, startled, and reach for her. She puts her hand back in mine, but palm down.

Her other hand touches my face. Traces over my ears. Rests on the tip of my nose.

I don't understand. I tip my head to the side, trying to figure out if this is some sort of answer. Mom takes her hand from my face, pulls her hand from mine, and I feel the side of the bed rise as she stands.

"Mom?"

There's no answer. There'll never _be_ an answer. But that doesn't stop the instinctive try. I reach for where she was. Only she's not there anymore.

"Mom?"

I let my hand fall to the bed, confused and lost. I don't know what was wrong about asking why. I don't understand why she reacted the way she did. I don't even know if the pattern she traced on my face was supposed to be some sort of answer or not.

Minutes pass. She doesn't come back.

"Conversation over," I whisper. "Thanks for that wonderful answer."

With nothing better to do, I quietly drum my fingers against the side of the bed. Then someone appears next to the bed. I can feel the change as they stand there, no doubt looking down at me. I stare back into the emptiness. Something presses closer and I flinch back, wincing when I accidentally knock my cast into something.

Cold fingers touch my face, running along the tube that leads over my ear and to my nose. I turn my head away. "Stop that," I hiss.

The finger vanishes. Something tugs underneath my cast – an odd sensation. Then the feel of cold water under my skin again. "I hate you," I mutter as the darkness presses in closer and steals away all sensation.

* * *

Uploaded: January 5, 2013  
Thanks for reading!


	78. Gym Class

_All credit goes to Haikujitsu for this idea. I'm borrowing it. The boldfaced, never-to-return, "borrowing" format generally more well-known as stealing._

_One only hopes I'm doing this badly. :)_

_Warning: Rated T for violence, lyrically depicted wounds, and general nightmares._

* * *

**Gym Class**  
A Danny Phantom Fanfic by Cori

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My breath hitched in my lungs as I completed the last lap in Mrs. Tetslaff's five-lap torture test known as the 'warm-up'. Legs feeling deceptively like spaghetti noodles, I stumbled over to the group and collapsed onto the floor, spread-eagled. No doubt sweat was already starting to bleed through my shirt. No doubt I was starting to smell a bit due to a lack of deodorant this morning.

No doubt I was breathing a bit loudly as I pressed my face against the cold floor.

"Must you?" came a sour mutter.

I turned my head to stare at the girl sitting next to me, dutifully stretching her legs and arms as the gym teacher dictated the stretches. "Yes," I gasped.

She rolled her eyes, tucking a loose strand of her frizzy, black hair behind an ear. "Seriously, Tucker. You need to get out more."

"Never!" I rolled onto my back and stared at the lights until Tetslaff sauntered into view, her shadow over my body.

She arched an eyebrow. "That's the most pathetic excuse for a sit-up I've ever seen."

Most people squirmed under the intimidating teacher's gaze. Tetslaff was used to people jumping when she said to jump and running when she said to run. I, however, have always seen her words for what they were: pathetic, uneducated sarcasm not quite worth stressing over. So instead of sitting up, I grinned at her. "Thank you! I've been working hard on that."

What little bit of smile was on her face vanished. "Mr. Foley-"

Whatever she was going to say was cut off by the unexpected, but very unmistakable sound of a fist hitting a face. We all turned to watch Dash Baxter (surprise, surprise) standing over the skinny form of geeky Norman Cartwell. Cartwell was sprawled on the ground with blood gushing out his nose. I thought Baxter looked almost… shocked, his eyes going from his fist to the kid on the ground, then back to his fist. Dash punches people, but never _in class_.

"Wow," Sam muttered as Tetslaff stalked away. "Dash doesn't usually lose it in front of a teacher. Wonder what Norman said."

"He probably was asking for it," someone else said, a nasty twist to her voice. We all turned to glare at Paulina. Some of us (okay, mostly me) with a bit more appreciation in our glare when we took in her tight gym shirt. Paulina brushed her hair over her shoulder, allowing the barest flash of her smooth neck. "He's such an annoying twerp."

"Is that in your professional opinion?" Sam drawled. She got to her feet and brushed some of the bits of dust off her gym shorts, seemingly unconcerned about the people around her. "From the world's foremost annoying twerp?"

"You!" Paulina was on her feet too, her hands on her hips, her tight clothes purposefully showing off _just_ too much. "I will never-"

I tore my eyes away from Paulina – she's not worth the effort to do anything more than look – to watch the teacher pressing a tissue against Cartwell's face to stop the flow of blood. Already the kid's shirt was crimson and saturated. He was _really_ bleeding. "I will not," Tetslaff was shouting, one finger waving in Baxter's direction, "have such rowdy behavior in my class! Out! Office. Now!"

Watching Baxter stalk from the gym, looking furious, I pulled myself to my feet as well. "Danny misses all the fun," I muttered. Cartwell was out of the gym only seconds later with Tetslaff, clutching his handful of tissues to his nose.

I stretched my arms over my head and then reached into my pocket to pull out my phone. With no teacher, there would be no gym class. I spared a second to glance up at the Paulina-Sam spat – Paulina was glaring and Sam was calmly shooting free throws - and clicked on a game. It was a strange one called Ghost Birds. You had to slingshot ghostly birds into a castle filled with zombie pigs. Stupid, simple, and _highly_ addictive.

It was between the slap of Sam's basketball and the pings of my game that I heard the fireworks. I glanced towards the door, then shrugged. _Bing, ding, squeal! Errrrg. _ I grinned as my latest shot knocked several of the zombie pigs from their towers.

"Hey, Tucker."

"Yeah, Sam?" My tongue worked between my teeth as I carefully maneuvered my next shot.

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" I muttered, then hesitated as the sound of shouting filtered through the hallway. I looked up from my game, glanced towards the doors of the gym. They were closed, little bits of light from the hallway filtering through the dirty panes of glass. After a moment of listening to the shouting, I shook my head. "What do you think's going on?"

There were those fireworks again. _Bang, bang, bang_. Short and sharp, in contrast to the twiddling sound of the game in my hand.

The door banged open. I started at the sharp sound, startled with a teacher raced through the door. It was one of the history teachers – a fat, older man I couldn't remember the name of. The door clicked shut behind him as he scrambled for Tetslaff's office. "In the locker rooms, now!" he shouted at us. There was a strange note of terror in his voice that I normally only associated with ghost attacks.

_Dun-dun-ha-ha-ha._ Chirped the game in my hands as I lost the round, staring at the teacher in surprise. I glanced down at the game, checked to see if the ghost detector I'd rigged inside was going off. It wasn't. No ghost.

Valerie raised her hand as the man pushed open the door to the office. "Um… class isn't-"

"Now," the overweight man snapped. The phone was in his hand. He was dialing. There was something about his face, the whiteness, the way his forehead was shining with sweat that made me stare at him. A strange uneasiness was clawing at my stomach.

None of us moved. I glanced at Sam with a question in my eyes. "Uh…"

This time the fireworks were right outside the door to the gym. The sharp echo of them going off echoed through the large room. My gaze was fixed on the door, feeling my heart beating in my ears. Everyone in the gym was silent.

This time, I could hear people screaming. One of the screams cut short with the sharp sound of a firework exploding.

"-near the gym. Yes, there's several of them – two that I saw-" The history teacher's voice slid in and out of focus between the screams. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, talking fast, his gaze jumping from the door to the phone and then back to the door. He was white as a ghost. Scared.

Seconds had passed. "Locker room." It was an unidentified voice – one that shook so much I could tell who it was. "W…we…"

I could hear the quiet sounds of people finally scrambling to their feet, hurrying towards the doors on the other side of the gym. My own legs were moving yet. I was still sitting there, staring at the door, unable to figure out what was going on. I was one of the smartest kids at the school, but this was beyond me. Why were people setting off fireworks in the hallways?

Somewhere overhead, a blue light started to flash. It beat rapidly, flashing light the heartbeat of someone who was running a race.

"Tucker!" Sam's voice was a hiss, her hands cold as they grabbed onto my arm and started to yank me towards the doors of the locker room. "Come on!"

The speaker overhead crackled to life. "Lockdown, lockdown, lockdown," came the trembling voice of the secretary. "This is not a drill. Active shooter. Lockdown, lockdown, lockdown."

Someone in the gym let out a sharp squeak. People started to run. Those two words – 'active shooter' reverberated in my head. Those sounds… they weren't fireworks, were they?

It was as if time was slowing down. I turned my head to stare at Sam. Her eyes were wide, fear pulling the blood from her face. I could feel her arms shaking as she pulled at my arm.

There was the sound of a door slamming open.

I scrambled to my feet, but it took seemingly forever. One of my feet slipped – perhaps in the slickness of the sweat I'd left from lying down – sending me stumbling down to my knees.

There was a sharp clap of thunder from behind me. It lodged into my ears, making them ring.

Sam's hand clenched tightly around my arm, a heart beat of pain. Then let go.

I looked at her. Red tears were seeping from her staring eyes.

There were more sounds, more screams, more slaps of sound that made my head spin. Noise and colors swirled. People were talking. Shouting. Every noise searing into my brain.

"-deserved it! Every one of you!"

"-pay for everything you've done-"

I had to run – I had to hide. Less than a second had passed since the doors had slammed open. I had to-

Laughter.

I didn't mean to look at them. My mind was set on getting up, on running, on finding someplace other than the center of a gymnasium to be. But my body had other plans. It quietly turned my head from where I was crouched on all fours, looking back towards the door.

There were two of them. Both were dressed in spirit wear from the school, a hat emblazoned with the football team's logo perched on their heads. One was carrying some sort of rifle. The other a terrifying thing that looked like a weapon right out of a war photo. They were barely inside the gym, standing still, grins on their faces and laughter bubbling out of the taller one.

I didn't know either one. Older than me. Probably graduated.

"Do you like this?" the shorter boy shouted, pointing his gun towards the ceiling and letting lose a sharp set of blasts. "This is nothing less than what you _deserve_, fuckers! Hell on Earth!"

Blood pounded in my head. My hands were slippery with sweat. I couldn't move. I couldn't even breathe.

Something warm and wet touched my hand. I didn't look down to see what it was.

The taller boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a long, thin stick. "Let's blow this popsicle stand," he said. There was a flare of light, a swirl of smoke. The stick was tossed further into the gym and the two vanished back out through the door.

It had taken less than fifteen seconds. There was the click of the door shutting. The sight of the history teacher poking his head over the desk – phone still clutched tightly to his ear. I tore my eyes off the door long enough to glance down, to notice that my hand was now sitting in a blood of blood. Sam's blood.

Then the stick exploded.

The impossibly loud rap of sound threw me to the floor. A flare of heat washed over me. Smoke billowed upwards, quickly filling the room with haze.

I found myself face-to-face with my best friend. Her eyes were empty. Her face was white and streaked with red. Her hair was matted. A tiny, dark hole near her ear.

I could smell her. The scent of her body spray. The tang of her blood. Uncooked hamburger.

Somewhere in the distance, more fireworks. Another boom. The wail of a fire alarm. The screeching voice of the secretary telling everyone to remain in lockdown.

Lockdown.

A hand grabbed me. I screamed, instinct making me kick out at the person, claw at them even as I rolled over. When I saw the white face of the old history teacher, I forced myself to still, even though my heart was slamming in my throat. He was talking. I couldn't hear him.

His hands came back, pulling me to my feet, pushing me towards the back of the gym. Somewhere in my head, the phrase 'locker room' floated. I could see the door.

My feet slipped in Sam's blood. My shirt was wet, sticking to my chest. Something was dripping down my face.

I hesitated, looking back at her. My best friend. I was leaving her there, floating by a pool of red, surrounded by a haze of smoke.

I couldn't leave-

A sharp push of hands got me moving again, stumbling towards the locker room, blocking my view of Sam. There was shouting in my ear.

It was only then that I saw them, lying on the floor. Students. My classmates. Some were moving a little. Some weren't.

One last push had the teacher leave me, head over to some of the others, crouch down near them. He left the first one lying there, just like Sam. Sprawled on the floor. Grabbed the second one's hands, started to pull. Left a streak of red on the floor as he pulled her towards the locker room.

I got there first, my feet having continued to stumble forwards in a detached sort of way. I pushed the door open, held it open as the teacher pulled the girl through the door and around the corner. I heard a couple of shouts from inside. Then silence.

The door clicked shut behind me. I jumped, startled by the sound.

The teacher was back, gave me yet another push towards the depths of the locker room. "Hide." This time the command settled into my brain. My head bobbed even as the teacher carefully opened the door to peer back into the gym.

I found a dozen kids crouching in the shadows of the locker room. One was holding onto the girl that had been shot, pressed something against her side. I stared at them a moment, couldn't process who they were. People I had gone to school with most of my life.

Empty faces. Empty eyes. White and scared.

The teacher was back, pulling someone else. There were several quick commands, as shirt dug out of a locker to press against a body, then he was gone again. The click of the door.

Another distant explosion.

I sank to the ground in the corner, pulling my knees to my chest. My arms were shaking so badly I could barely wrap them around my legs. I let my forehead fall into my knees. I closed my eyes. I could see blood.

Click.

Click.

Click.

The door kept clicking. Soft whispers. Fear. I didn't look up.

Then someone commanding. Boots on the floor rather than shoes.

"-seven are badly injured-" It was the teacher's voice. "-ambulance-"

Hands grabbed my shoulders. "Are you hurt?" A pause. "Hey, kid!"

My eyes flickered open, looking at the face of a police officer. The man was pale, his brown eyes wide. I stared at him a long moment, then shook my head.

"Up you get. We need to get you out of here." His voice was steady, his hands not shaking as he pulled me to my feet. I felt dizzy and lightheaded as I stared at him, my legs feeling like they were going to buckle at any moment. Only his eyes gave away what he was feeling. I wondered what my eyes looked like.

Almost suddenly, I found myself outside, surrounded by the flashing lights of emergency workers, sitting propped up against the wheel of a police car. There was a blanket wrapped tightly around me, someone pressing a cold cloth against my forehead. I blinked and shivered, looking up at her. She was a teacher; I'd seen her around. Foreign language, perhaps.

I couldn't stop shivering. Cold had seeped into me. My clothes were sticky, my fingers feeling glued together.

People were crying. Screaming. Names were being called out.

I saw Sam's parents. Standing still and silent, close together, watching the scene like rocks in the churning ocean. There were no tears on their faces. Just emptiness. I wondered if they knew.

She liked to run. She loved growing exotic flowers. She wanted to save the world, even it if was one carrot at a time. She wasn't afraid of the dark and the shadows.

I wondered if they knew.

Then my mom was there, pushing the teacher aside to pull me into her arms. She was shaking more than I was. Pulled close, not letting go.

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Uploaded Feb 11, 2012  
Just because.


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